New doings at Smashwords. From the Smashwords blog : At Smashwords, we’re always thinking of new methods to improve the discoverability of our books for the benefit of our authors, publishers and customers. With in in mind, today we launched Smashwords Satellites, a collection of 33 standalone web sites, organized around different themes, featuring slices of Smashwords content

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‘Satellites’: 33 new theme-based Web sites to help shoppers to find Smashwords’ books

Received an email from Amber Johnson who tell me that Online College has listed TeleRead in its 100 best blogs for school librarians . We are under the Miscellaneous category and here’s what they say: School librarians, whether they work small college libraries, large research universities and departments, or elementary schools, need to stay current on the latest in technology innovation, reading lists, the publishing world, ebook trends, special project and lesson ideas, and a lot more.

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Hooray for us: TeleRead makes 100-best-blog list for school librarians!

Cory Doctorow’s new economy-related novel, Makers , is being serialized. “We’ll be serializing the entirety of the novel, with a new installment every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday,” says a Tor blog . You can already read parts 1 and 2 of the 81 planned—and subscribe to TOR’s RSS for this and other some items .

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Serialization in E for new Doctorow novel: Start reading now

EAST HAMPTON, N.Y., July 8 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Max Cure Foundation — a non-profit organization whose mission is to fund pediatric cancer causes — announced today its first charity benefit, the first annual “Roar for a Cure” Carnival and family fun day, to take place on Saturday, August 22, from 2:00 – 6:00 p.m. (rain date: Sunday, August 23) on the grounds of the East Hampton Indoor Tennis Club, 175 Daniels Hole Road, East Hampton, N.Y. The outdoor event will have fun-filled activi

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Press Release – The Max Cure Foundation Announces Its First Charity Benefit: The ‘Roar for a Cure’ Carnival to Be Held on Saturday, August 22, 2009

Q. Hi Umbra, I’m in the book business, and there are many who try and make sure books never make it to landfills and are donated to worthy causes. However, I have been wondering for some time about the environmental impact of such authors as Danielle Steel, Nora Roberts, and Tom Clancy, whose books quickly become worthless, and how they feel about their environmental impact, and what if anything they are doing to improve the clear-cutting they might be causing

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Ask Umbra on paperback writers

There are a lot of options when it comes to telling time off the grid.  It seems that alternative-powered clocks are everywhere, but they’re usually expensive and some require a lot of work to keep them juiced. The Bedol Water Clock luckily has neither of those problems.  The small 4 inch by 3.5 inch clock runs off water with a splash of lemon juice for six to eight weeks at a time, meaning no regular cranking, recharging, or need for a battery at all. Even better, the clock will only cost you $16

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When life hands you lemons…power your alarm clock?

The venerable Trover Shop on Pennsylvania Avenue is closing after 51 years of selling to both the famous and obscure on Capitol Hill. Only a card shop, at another location, will be left. Hits me directly in the pocketbook.

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Damn! Another indie bookstore is closing—the one stocking my paperback on Capitol Hill

Hydrogen seems like a logical choice for fuel – it’s energy dense and emits only water upon combustion – but upon closer examination we see that it’s extremely expensive to make from water, so all the hydrogen in production today is made from fossil fuels. But Gerardine Botte at Ohio University has figured out an easy and efficient way to break the bonds in urea to produce hydrogen. The process consumes roughly one quarter of the energy needed to electrolyze water.

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Using urine to produce hydrogen

Volkswagen’s Jetta TDI SportWagen (next to a Honda Fit). (Photo: Jim Motavalli) The car I’m driving this week is fast, quiet, environmentally friendly, very well-made, and gets excellent fuel economy. It’s a Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen TDI , and it’s a diesel

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With cheap diesel and cleaner emissions, will Americans give up gas?

This morning, I spent a bit of time wandering around to see who’s talking about coffee and what they have to say… here’s a roundup of the coffee news, the coffee blogs and what the caffeinistas are saying about coffee this morning. My fave MSNBC news host, Carlos Watson runs The Stimulist blog, a great mashup of pop culture, news and neat stuff. Yesterday, The Stimulist posted about coffee curing Alzheimers – or at least reducing memory loss due to Alzheimers.

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Talking about coffee – around the blogs

“While most ‘trade’ publishers expect e-book revenues to account for no more than 3 per cent of sales this year, e-books accounted for a ‘significant’ amount of Springer’s turnover…” – Financial Times summing up remarks by Olaf Ernst , president of e-product management and innovation at Springer Science and Business Media . Ernest on the future: “We expect in the next few years that within the STM [scientific, technical and medical] market more than half of our book revenues will come from e-books." On e-book standards: “Springer echoed calls from trade publishers for manufacturers of e-book readers to settle on a common software standard, to eliminate the cost of serving half-a-dozen different formats.” Yo, Jeff Bezo! This means you , among others.

Excerpt from:
E-books ALREADY major contributor to Springer’s turnover

"Let’s not turn them into all-purpose devices until we get the reading details right," reads the subhead over a Big Money piece on E Ink machines like the Kindle. The author is Marion Maneker , former publisher of a business imprint at HarperCollins

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‘Let e-readers be e-reader’: Why ex-HarperCollins exec wants E Ink gizmos to focus on App One

“Atlantic Media publisher David Bradley on Monday issued a full-throated defense of the kind of off-the record, corporate-sponsored ‘salons’ that last week ensnared the Washington Post in controversy, arguing that they are both a source of revenue "and advance a legitimate purpose for a media organization – promoting debate and discussion." – The Politico . The TeleRead take: We’re still talking about the selling of access—I don’t care how many media executives stand up for Katharine Weymouth , daughter of the Post’s legendary Kay Graham who is probably spinning in her grave. Photo is of Graham.

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Atlantic Media publisher defends Washington Post’s corporately sponsored ‘salons’

“In yet another sign of how online media outlets are strengthening as their older establishment predecessors are struggling to survive, The Huffington Post has hired Dan Froomkin to be its Washington Bureau Chief and regular columnist/blogger.” – Glenn Greenwald in Salon . Technorati Tags: Dan Froomkin

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Fired Washington Post blogger hired by HuffPo: Another loss for old media

“When three men set out on a quest to build a real-life Buck Rogers-style flying machine, their obsession with the Rocketbelt 2000 shattered their friendship and set in motion an astonishing chain of events involving theft, deception, assault, a bizarre kidnapping, a ten million dollar lawsuit and a horrifically brutal murder. From sci-fi to reality, this is the incredible true story of the amazing rocketbelt.” – Description at Feedbooks , where this gripping history from the annals of aviation tech is free.

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‘The Rocketbelt Caper: A True Tale of Invention, Obsession and Murder’: Free in E and even P

New Delhi: The General Budget presented by Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee drew a mixed response in newspapers, which largely described the focus on “Aam Aadmi” (ordinary man) as an attempt to serve the “inclusive growth” poll-promise of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance in its second innings at the Centre. The Hindu, which carried “Massive Rural Spending To Spur Growth” as the lead news, observed in its editorial titled “Focus On Inclusive Growth”: “The budget presented b

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Indian Media Gives A Mixed Response To Mukherjee’s `Aam Aadmi” Budget

The coverage in the 11 days that have passed since Michael Jackson’s death has served as a cultural opiate, a chance for Americans to forget the recession, the nation’s two wars and the debate about health care — and travel (literally in the case of NBC and CNN) to Neverland, where they could see endless news clips of Jackson moonwalking and legal analysis about the future of his estate.

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With memorial today, Michael Jackson’s death crowds out other news (Seattle Times)

Breaking the news of Michael Jackson’s death boosted weekly traffic at TMZ.com, putting it ahead of all other celebrity news sites for the first time since it posted an exclusive police photo of a bruised Rihanna in February. “That set the record for us back… Sponsored Topics: Michael Jackson – TMZ.com – Breaking news – Rihanna – Alan Citron

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Breaking news of Jackson death boosts TMZ traffic (San Francisco Chronicle)

Thanks to boingboing for the heads up about this article on io9 . Here’s a snippet: … Stackpole is convinced that both established and fledgling authors need to embrace new content delivery methods or fade into irrelevance. In fact, he offered evidence that digital publishing will not only be necessary for authors, but that it will work in their favor.

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Major author Michael Stackpole on digital books and piracy

Greenpeace International has released its annual “Guide to Greener Electronics” where it ranks leading electronics companies on their policies towards toxic chemicals, recycling and climate change.  This year, PC makers made up the bottom of the list, Apple floated somewhere in the middle, and cell phone makers got the highest marks.  Below is the list with each company’s score from 1 – 10 (10 being the best) with the brief explanation of the score provided by Greenpeace.

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Greenpeace releases annual green electronics rankings