Thursday News: Tattoos as book marketing, gearing up for Go Set a Watchman, Nook closing international store, and Alex Ross illustrates the Beatles
The desperate book industry and ‘tatvertising’ are a perfect, tragic match – I don’t even know what to say about this, beyond WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY THINKING?!?
Hachette Australia has announced an open casting call for a woman who is willing to “donate” her back for a large, permanent tattoo that will be used to promote the fourth book in Stieg Larsson’s wildly successful Millennium Series (it’s being called, explicitly, “tatvertising”). . . .
Hachette wants to spend eight hours (spread across two days of sessions) tattooing their volunteer with, admittedly, what is probably a pretty cool dragon tattoo, and then use her back as the central image of its outdoor ads. A Hachette rep told the Sydney Morning Herald (with apparent sincerity) that the lucky woman will be able to consider herself “the back of the campaign.” As in, her back will more or less become the property of Hachette Australia for three months worth of publicity. The tattoo will be 8 inches by 12 inches. –The Verge
What we know now about Harper Lee and ‘Go Set a Watchman’ – With the imminent release of Go Set a Watchman, we’re seeing more publicity, as well as the promise of the first chapter’s publication in the Wall Street Journal on Friday, and this article is a pretty good round-up of the recent developments, controversies, and plans around the books’ release. Supposedly Harper Lee received a copy of the new book and said something to the effect that she always knew the book would be published. Okay, then. And now there’s this:
WE KNOW THERE MAY BE MORE WHERE ‘WATCHMAN’ CAME FROM.
The New Yorker reported that Lee in the 1970s worked on and then abandoned a true-crime book about a notorious series of Alexander City murders. –AL.com
The Beginning of the End: B&N Shutters the International Nook Store – I don’t think this is a surprise to anyone, but I’m less optimistic than some about the chances of Barnes & Noble finding a buyer who will save the Nook. So does this mean that Kobo will inherit yet another digital books customer list? And could Kobo gain enough currency in the US market to take on the Kindle?
Barnes & Noble is sending out emails to customers in Europe, sharing the news that they will soon be ex-customers.
You can find the email at the end of this post (translated from Dutch; Thanks, Martjin!) but the short version is that B&N has reiterated the announcement they made last month when they said the Nook Windows 8 app would no longer be available internationally.
B&N is abandoning most of its international customers on 7 August 2015.–Ink, Bits, & Pixels (The Digital Reader)
See Comic Book Artist Alex Ross’ Official Beatles Artwork – Given the current popularity of comics and superheroes, having artist Alex Ross represent the Beatles in a series of illustrations seems like a really smart way of engaging new audiences with the Beatles music and extending the iconic popularity of the group by updating the animation that fan associate with movies like The Yellow Submarine and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. And there don’t seem to be any tattoos involved…
Alex Ross made his name with his painted, nearly photorealist artwork for superhero comic books, most famously Kingdom Come and Marvels. Now he’s turning his hand to a different set of visual icons. Rolling Stone can exclusively reveal Ross’s series of illustrations of the Beatles, created with the blessing of the band’s organization Apple Corps. Ross is set to unveil the artwork in person at this week’s Comic-Con International in San Diego. . . .
The first fruit of the project was a six-foot-wide print of the band; a painterly, CinemaScope-style re-envisioning of the distinctly cartoony, two-dimensional imagery from the Beatles’ 1968 animated movie Yellow Submarine. –Rolling Stone
I don’t know. If the dragon is really beautiful and there’s no title or author or other printing as such, it’s a great way for someone to get a tattoo that would otherwise cost a grand or more. Then again, only two sessions can be really rough for anything intricate and that large…
I’ve tried and tried to support BN, but their customer service is going downhill, I got rid of my Nook which I loved because I couldn’t get any help when I had some trouble with it and was tired of fixing things on my own…I hate to see this happen. They’re a mainstay in our area and the store is extremely busy all the time, but one store can’t support a company either. Bummer.
Ok. Now what do I do! I have over 3,000 books in my nook account. How do i back these books up so I will be able to read them when the US division closes?
@Helen – if you already have the Nook app on your computer or laptop, use that to back up your ebooks to your hard drive.
If you don’t have the app, it’s trickier but not impossible. BN stopped supporting or publicizing the app but you can still download the app for windows or Mac from 3rd party sites. I’d try installing it even if it doesn’t support your OS – I have the Nook app running on my MacBook Pro with the latest OS and it works.
Here’s a Mac app link:
http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/42121/nook
Oh dear.
I do find Ross’s work beautiful and iconic, and the Beatles are brilliant, but… what a mismatch.
Ross’s interpretations of superheroes has always been titanic, majestic, stately, but static and even shallow. Yellow Submarine-era Beatles are all about liveliness and energy and messiness and slapdash joie de vivre. It would be like hiring Idris Elba to play the Genie in Disney’s Aladdin.
@Helen – and here’s a link for the Windows8 Nook app – http://m.en.softonic.com/app/nook-windows-8
There’s going to be a new book in the Millennium series? Count me in! I know it’s most improper, but I really wished the author had lived to write the 10 books he had planned for the series. It’s one of my favorites. As for the tattoo, I love them. Like said before, if it does not have names and it’s artistic I would be game.
Hmmmm. TBH, I’ve always wanted a large entire back dragon tattoo. But I’ve done it because 1) PAIN and 2) PAIN and 3) Pain + what to do on the occasions I want to hide it. I’m pretty sure where they got the idea from “Ink Master” reality show where people sign up to let un-vetted strange tattoo artists tattoo them. At least in this situation the person will get a good tat.
Also, I’m not a fan of the Beatles remake. The Yellow Submarine is perfect as is.
@Helen: @cleo is correct that you can use the Nook app to download copies to your hard drive.
However, those copies remain DRMed and may be hard to open in other programs. The solution is to download Calibre ebook management software, then install the DeDRM plug-in for Calibre (all free). Then you can import your downloaded nook book files into Calibre and it will strip the DRM out, so that you aren’t locked into the Nook app for reading them.
I’ve been doing this for some time now, in anticipation that B&N would eventually abandon the Nook in all of its different manifestations.
@Helen: I agree with harthad about Calibre and DRM. This is the only way to keep your books no matter what the book industry does. If you’re a Windows user, the installation and instructions are fairly easy. If you’re on Linux, I can help and we’ll drink a lot afterwards. Can’t speak for Macs, sorry. This link will get you to Calibre: http://calibre-ebook.com/download and then google Apprentice Alf for the de-DRM instructions.
Thanks everyone!
I am off to download Calibre.
Huh, I had noticed that the Nook site had updated, but I had NOT noticed that it was broken.
Well, I certainly wouldn’t object if B&N finally said ctrl-alt-fuckit and sold their customer base to Kobo. That’d let me consolidate a lot of my fractured library across platforms.
Aw, hell, I LOVE my Nook. Guess I’m off to Calibre as well- no harm in some insurance.