An innovative and strategic e-book designed to help independent authors and publishers sell large quantities of books to non traditional buying markets.
An introduction to and advice on book collecting with a glossary of terms and tips on how to identify first editions and estimated values for over 20,000 collectible books published in English (including translations) over the last three centuries-about half are literary titles in the broadest sense (novels, poetry, plays, mysteries, science fiction, and children's books); and the other half are non-fiction (Americana, travel and exploration, finance, cookbooks, color plate, medicine, science, photography, Mormonism, sports, et al).
2007 Choice Outstanding Academic Title Although the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City symbolically mark the start of the gay rights movement, individuals came together long before the modern era to express their same-sex romantic and sexual attraction toward one another, and in a myriad of ways. Some reflected on their desires in quiet solitude, while others endured verbal, physical, and legal harassment for publicly expressing homosexual interest through words or actions. Long Before Stonewall seeks to uncover the many iterations of same-sex desire in colonial America and the early Republic, as well as to expand the scope of how we define and recognize homosocial behavior. Thomas A. Foster has assembled a pathbreaking, interdisciplinary collection of original and classic essays that explore topics ranging from homoerotic imagery of black men to prison reform to the development of sexual orientations. This collection spans a regional and temporal breadth that stretches from the colonial Southwest to Quaker communities in New England. It also includes a challenge to commonly accepted understandings of the Native American berdache. Throughout, connections of race, class, status, and gender are emphasized, exposing the deep foundations on which modern sexual political movements and identities are built.
In Regional Interest Magazines of the United States, Sam G. Riley and Gary W. Selnow focus on those magazines that direct their attention to a particular city or region and reach a fairly general readership intersted in entertainment and information. This work is a follow-up to their earlier Index to City and Regional Magazines of the United States. Titles are arranged alphabetically to facilitate access; each entry includes a historical essay on the magazine's founding, development, editorial policies, and content. Entries also include two sections that provide data on information sources and publication history, arranged in tabular form for ready reference. In choosing the magazines to be profiled, Riley and Selnow attempted to represent not only the biggest and most successful of this genre, but also some smaller and newer titles, plus significant earlier magazines that are no longer in print. Special care was also taken to achieve an even geographical spread. To attain greater accuracy, regional writers were enlisted to do the entries on their own region. These writers provide valuable information on how the various magazines began, how conditions have caused them to change, their problems, their editors and publishers, and their content as well as colorful and little known facts of their operation. Magazines were arranged alphabetically, and two informative appendices list the profiled titles by founding date and geographic location. This volume will be a valuable resource for students of magazine publishing history.
What happens when the bottlenecks that stand between supply and demand in our culture go away and everything becomes available to everyone? "The Long Tail" is a powerful new force in our economy: the rise of the niche. As the cost of reaching consumers drops dramatically, our markets are shifting from a one-size-fits-all model of mass appeal to one of unlimited variety for unique tastes. From supermarket shelves to advertising agencies, the ability to offer vast choice is changing everything, and causing us to rethink where our markets lie and how to get to them. Unlimited selection is revealing truths about what consumers want and how they want to get it, from DVDs at Netflix to songs on iTunes to advertising on Google. However, this is not just a virtue of online marketplaces; it is an example of an entirely new economic model for business, one that is just beginning to show its power. After a century of obsessing over the few products at the head of the demand curve, the new economics of distribution allow us to turn our focus to the many more products in the tail, which collectively can create a new market as big as the one we already know. The Long Tail is really about the economics of abundance. New efficiencies in distribution, manufacturing, and marketing are essentially resetting the definition of what's commercially viable across the board. If the 20th century was about hits, the 21st will be equally about niches.