Bookish links 17 Jan: digital kidlit, public domain characters, print books not dead more!

RIASS stuff:

Writing, place and Anthony Doerr's Four Seasons in Rome'Rating:

Review: Maine by Courtney Sullivan'Rating:

Giveaway:'Safe Haven'by Nicholas Sparks'(US only)

My recent guest posts: on height in romance novels; an interview about my writing over at The Great Raven

My husband (nerdy software developer) and I are going to be up in Sydney over the 26th and 27th of February. If you'd like to catch up while we're there, drop me a line at readinasinglesitting AT gmail.com.

Other bookish stuff:

Are you a book blogger? If so, consider filling out this survey about the value of book blogging.

If youre after a spot of nostalgia, visit Googles home page and check out todays Google Doodle:

The childrens digital market: still uncharted territory'Friends and family overtook bookstore browsing and libraries as the top influencers, painting the picture of the children's book market as a highly local word-of-mouth economyOn the topic of digital, a surprising shift back to print was seen since spring 2012, and for the year e-book adoption growth was flat among teens, with some evidence that teens liked print more in the fall than they did in the spring.

More on childrens digital publishing'Kashif Zafar and Matt Warner of Barnes & Noble and Nook Kids said theres a move away from buying on BarnesandNoble.com and toward readers purchasing books directly through their Nooks. Lists became the preferred method of on-device discovery, said Zafar.

Stephen Kings'Under the Dome to air in the US on the 24th of June.

Should you use public domain characters in your books? A public domain characterDracula for instancealready has an audience, many readers love Bram Stokers story of horror so you have a build in audience. Which, incidentally, is also a reason'not'to use a public domain character. All those fans have high expectations. Even if we time-travelled and grabbed the original author and forced him to write more stories I think some fans would hate them.

A bookshelf ladder

Why print books will never die Theyre beautiful, engaging and scarce.'The physical artifacts are beginning to feel more precious, more like gifts. And I can see publishing going the same way,says Jack Cheng.

Is publishings future all about globalised brands?''I always use Disney as an example, says Erich Huang. Disney will say these are the four things we're going to do globally this year, and this gets rolled out through all the offices. Everyone takes it on. No one says 'Tuh. The Americans are making us do this.'

How to think like Sherlock Holmes:'It is most difficult to apply Holmes's logic in those moments that matter the most. And so, all we can do is practice, until our habits are such that even the most severe stressors will bring out the very thought patterns that we've worked so hard to master.

Neil Gaiman on his new book Chus Day

A primer on Goodreads for teachers and librarians

Theres another relevant link on book discovery for kids here. (It basically just sums up the above)

Where have all the narrators gone?' Ten years later, I continue to receive stories long on vivid camera work and short on coherence. These manuscripts all lack the same thing: an effective narratorI have since come to believe that these manuscripts reflect a more fundamental cultural shift. In evolving from readers to viewers, we've lost our grip on the essential virtues embodied by a narrator: the capacity to make sense of the world, both around and inside us.

Sourcebooks has released a series of personalised childrens book apps. Thoughts? Im not a huge fan of this sort of approach to storytelling, personally.

Gary Shteyngart book blurbs:

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