November 7, 2010

Crowdfunded book agent tenpages.com wins Accenture Innovation Award

Filed under: Literature by Branko Collin @ 1:04 pm

Last Tuesday tenpages.com, a website that letd readers buy shares in upcoming books based on their first ten pages, won the Accenture Innovation jury Award 2010. The audience award was given to Catawiki, the personal-library-manager-meets-ebay.

Tenpages.com works something like this:

  • A writer writes the first ten pages of their book and posts them to the website.
  • The writer then tries to convince 2,000 people to buy a 5 euro share.
  • A renowned publisher has the option to commit to the book.
  • Once all shares are sold, the author gets 1,000 euro and the publisher 9,000 euro.
  • Presumably at some point, a book is published.

It looks to me like this could go one of two ways. On the one hand, this could finally free authors from some of the iron grip traditional publishers have, and on the other, this could turn into a vanity press scheme on speed. The safeguard against the latter scenario is that the publishers involved so far all have a reputation to live up to and we all know that serious publishers would never throw their good name away.

See also: Public Enemy to produce next album through Sellaband

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August 26, 2010

The last of the Frisian students

Filed under: Fashion,Literature,Music by Orangemaster @ 1:18 pm

According to the Volkskrant, only one student has registered to study Frisian this year at the University of Groningen, the only university in the country that offers a Bacherlor’s and Master’s degree in the country’s second official language.

Professor Goffe Jensma said on a local radio show in Groningen that new rules allowing universities to set their own fees for second degrees was at the heart of the problem. Grytsje Nicolaij, who already has a degree as a musicologist, was planning to study Fries on the side to keep up with family and friends who spoke the language better than he did. If the university does not attract more students (how many, we don’t know) before October 1, Grytsje will have to brush up on his Frisian elsewhere.

What does Frisian sound like?

Frisian Duo Twarres had a huge hit with ‘Wêr Bisto’ (‘Live, with a Dutch translation). The girl is the guitarist, the guy is the back up singer and they are childhood friends:

Frisian model Doutzen Kroes (L’Oréal, Victoria’s Secret) promotes her mother tongue:

(Link: volkskrant, via dutchnews)

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July 16, 2010

Google to scan 160,000 National Library books

Filed under: General,Literature,Online by Orangemaster @ 11:03 am

Google books has received the green light on 14 July from the Dutch National Library to scan more than 160,000 public domain books from the 18th and 19th centuries. The scanned books will then be available on the library’s website and on Europeana, an online library with six million books. Scanning is going to take years, after which the books will be available again physically in the library. We wrote about the library’s ambitious plans earlier this year.

The collection features a wide range of historical, legal and social works, including Jan ten Brink, author and professor of Dutch literature, tutor of great Dutch author, Louis Couperus and L.A. te Winkel and Matthias de Vries, co-editors of the Dictionary of the Dutch Language.

According to Nrcnext as well as the Seattle Times, there is a worry that by being the sole administrator of all these books as well as turning a profit on them, Google will have too much power over the digital book market. “Our cultural heritage is not Google’s to have,” explains Geert Lovink, a media theoretician, in Nrcnext. He believes other companies can handle some of the scanning and distribution as well, even though he thinks the generally idea is good.

(Links: nrcnext.nl, kb.nl and seattletimes)

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June 21, 2010

Tablet PCs such as iPad to outsell e-book readers in 2010

Filed under: Literature,Technology by Branko Collin @ 1:50 pm

The Dutch will have bought 250,000 tablet PCs by the end of the year, market research company GfK predicts. Currently, there are about 50,000 e-book readers in the Netherlands.

GfK’s Laurens van den Oever told this at the Mediapark Jaarcongres two weeks ago, Bright reports. He also predicted according to Emerce that in three years’ time, 60% of the Dutch households will own a TV with an Internet connection. Today, that number is 10%.

(Photo by Rego Korosi, some rights reserved)

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June 13, 2010

E-book pioneer iRex files for bankruptcy

Filed under: Literature,Technology by Branko Collin @ 2:31 pm

In 2006 I borrowed Orangemaster’s camera, hopped on the train to Eindhoven, and visited a start-up at Philips’ famous High Tech Campus to look at its single, yet to be released product, the Iliad e-reader. Today I learnt through newspaper FD that the former start-up Irex has filed for and received bankruptcy (Dutch).

The Iliad was an E Ink based tablet computer suited mainly for reading, hence the name. At the time, only Sony had a comparable device, the Librié.

Irex’s goal was to replace paper, not necessarily to compete with similar e-readers for consumers. To that effect, its reader had a larger screen and it could also be written to using a stylus. The company left selling books to third parties, expecting content providers to bundle the Iliad with their products. The intended customers for the device weren’t novel readers, but students, lawyers and others used to toting around kilos of text books and note pads each day.

Later, Irex also turned to the consumer market, where it had to compete with the Kindle, the Apple Ipad and the newer Sony devices, and even the Bebook, another Dutch brand of e-reader. Apparently, trying to introduce its latest consumer device in the USA is what broke the camel’s back. Disappointing sales due to a late FCC approval (only after the Christmas season) meant that Irex’s cash flow dried up,

The good news is that besides its cash flow problem, Irex is apparently in good health, and has a lot of intellectual capital. The type of bankruptcy that they have filed for and received last Tuesday, called surseance van betaling, does not mean the end of the company but merely a temporary stop of its obligation to pay bills. Irex owes more than 5 million euro, mostly to Deutsche Bank. FD reports in a follow-up article that lots of other companies are interested in buying the outfit.

See also:

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May 1, 2010

Queen’s Day 2010: friendly and fun

Filed under: Food & Drink,Gaming,General,Literature,Photography by Orangemaster @ 11:07 am
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Queen’s Day in Amsterdam’s West and Old South districts was not too crowded and full of excellent finds on the outdoor market. I thought people were a tad friendlier than usually, it could be this crisis is bringing us a bit closer, who knows. It was also nice to run into friends as well, some selling, some buying and some joining us for food and drinks.

Although it was a bit rainy during the day and cold (10 degrees when the day before was 20), the sun finally popped out and 24oranges went out to enjoy the day and prepare our annual Queen’s Day photo report. First, the lady at the bakery pointed out that the Dutch eclair-like cakes as well as her ‘tompouces’ here above were made by hand.

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The city’s major park, Vondelpark, is traditionally overrun by children selling and buying as well as playing music for coins and doing tricks and the likes. And after years of watching hordes wear those inflatable crowns, I finally walked by the people on the street of the lottery company who hands these things out and scored me one too.

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Although quickly pointed out as a traditional Dutch game, sjoelbak is apparently of British origin, but the Dutch have their own take on it.

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There were people selling all kinds of stuff: the usual houselhold knickknacks, darkroom equipment, clothes, records, books, you name it. And that’s still not the best part. At the end of the day, people place a lot of unsold items on the kerb for rubbish and then it’s free digging time, which can even be better than the stuff you bought during the day.

We saved some LPs and books from destruction this year and we noticed that so much was properly cleaned up, due to the city’s street cleaners’ strike. Maybe that has do to the classier neighbourhoods we were in as well.

In this last picture of women checking out handbags, you can play spot the 24oranges blogger.

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April 7, 2010

University adds rare Dutch cookbook to its collection

Filed under: Food & Drink,History,Literature by Orangemaster @ 1:05 pm

An extremely rare 17th century Dutch cookbook, entitled ‘Het Koock-boeck oft Familieren Keuken-boeck’ (Cook Book or Family Kitchen Book) is now part of the Special Collections institute of the University of Amsterdam Library. According to Radio Netherlands, it is the oldest known cookery book in the Dutch language. “Prominent Dutchmen like Jacob Cats and Constantijn Huygens owned this book, but it was missing from our extensive gastronomic collection until now.”

For those of you ready to poke fun at Dutch cooking, allow me: this book was apparently aimed at upper class ladies and tried to counter the blandness of Dutch food by introducing Italian produce and herbs.

About half a year ago I remember a friend telling me how they make pizzas in their mobile food stand and having more than 20 people in South Holland asking them ‘what’s that green thing?’ and pointing at the basil leaves on their pizzas.

(Link: rnw.nl)

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March 24, 2010

Shelf space for rent for vanity press

Filed under: Literature by Branko Collin @ 10:33 pm

A small book store in Amsterdam offers self-published authors its limited shelf space—for a price.

Boek ‘n Plank on the Vijzelstraat lets you rent enough shelf space to pile your books up to 20 centimetres high. You pay 25 euro per six months, and a provision per copy sold. The store’s owner, Jolanda Janssen, reserves the right to refuse works she deems morally unacceptable.

The name Boek ‘n Plank is a pun. Literally it means ‘book a shelf,’ but when spoken out loud it sounds the same as boekenplank, book shelf.

(Link: De Pers)

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March 14, 2010

Book-shaped stamp (also: stamp-shaped book)

Filed under: Art,Literature by Branko Collin @ 10:31 am

TNT Post has issued an 8-page stamp in honour of the Dutch book week, which runs from March 10-20.

The stamp is valued at 2.20 euro, which according to TNT’s press release should be enough to send somebody a book.

The book on the stamp was written by Joost Zwagerman (photo), and can also be downloaded here. The book stamp was designed by Richard Hutten. It measures 3 × 4 centimetres, and 266,000 copies were made.

(Source photo: TNTpost.nl. Photographer: Roy Beusker. Link: Bright.nl.)

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March 2, 2010

First digital magazine on Japanese affairs

Filed under: General,Literature by Orangemaster @ 11:04 am
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In 2009 the Netherlands and Japan celebrated their 400th anniversary of trade relations. The story goes that back in 1609 shogun Tokugawa Iesayu issued an official trade permit to the Netherlands. Although the Portugese were the first Westerners to show up in Japan back in the mid 16th century, they were more preoccupied with pushing religion than doing business and eventually left. They did leave words like ‘tempura’ behind that most people still think is Japanese.

(I can’t believe the introduction to Japan course I had to take to finish my university studies because it fit my schedule is actually of some use!)

Another huge link between the two countries is the Tokugawa shogunate’s desire to learn about all things Western, all while practicising a policy of isolation of Japan from the world. And so Japan developed ‘rangaku’ (‘Dutch Learning’, also meaning ‘Western learning’), with the Dutch as a unique source of information about medicine and science in general. History notes that the Japanese were pretty freaked out at seeing men with red hair for the first time.

And knowing that Japan is not only up to speed with the Western world, but can kick its backside any time it wants, business is still a major common point and apparently worthy of a new online magazine.

Download the first issue of the The Netherlands-Japan Review as a PDF for free. Articles are in Dutch and English.

(Link: breitbart.com. Illustration by 17th century artist Yoshida Hambei)

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