Welcome to the world of Inanimate Alice, a truly digital novel that has taken the educational world by storm. The idea for Alice first came about in 2003 and the team (Ian Harper, Chris Joseph and award winning author Kate Pullinger) published the first episode in 2005. The story is told by Alice through 10 episodes. Each adventure looks back through her childhood & into her early twenties, a bildungsroman.

The plot for the series uses Alice’s increasing interest and competency in game development to exemplify her transition from childhood to early womanhood. The first four episodes have been completed, the fifth is being released this year and the final five are still in development. With a team of creators fostering its relationship with its readers across the world, this is a novel on an epic scale.

Tuesday last was the Society of Young Publishers’ career speed dating evening, which I was invited to appear at as a digital expert. Basically, a group of publishing students and people who are interested in working in publishing come along and ask you about your job and how you started out and what your day-to-day entails, and you’ve got six minutes to turn your own blank look into something like worldly advice.

On the digital front this week, there were Nine truths about e-book publishing, 5 Career Tips to Survive Publishing’s Digital Shift?, and there was good news for comic fans as Aquafadas Offers Self-Publishers Digital Publishing Tools for graphic novels.

But with the cascade of new epublishing tools, it’s best to remember the  Tortured Language – Discerning Ebook Rights in Ancient Publishing Contracts.

Meanwhile, could editors become brands in themselves, acting as a recommendation engine for readers?

There was also talk of Books, Reading, and Pinterest, The Value of Making Reading Hard, and the role of  The Publisher as Curator.

This week’s big bout was Amazon vs. Big Publishing: 800 lbs vs. 798 lbs.?

And if all that wasn’t enough reading for you, here’s some more of the Best Links for Writers and Publishers, and Your Guide to Literary Tumblrs.

Here’s a lesson in how to sink an already flooded market: create a piece of software where publishing is as easy as clicking a button, and promote a culture where it is commonly accepted that writing a novel is as simple as putting down whatever comes into your head. Inflate your life jackets now, guys, because we’re there.

It’s pretty well documented that January is the most depressing month of the year if you live in the UK. We’ve got nothing to look forward to except the two long months between now and the possibility of Spring, which, to be honest, is likely to be late, cold and disappointing. It seems commentators in the book world have caught this negativity virus as I’ve read more articles bleating idiotically about the demise of the printed/edited/published world this year already than I did for all of December, but let me assure you there is plenty to be excited about this year in publishing. Before we all top ourselves, let’s run through a few things that have gone right lately.

Last year I took a stab at 6 key publishing predictions for the year ahead. How did I do?

Well, my hit rate was pretty good so I thought I’d give you another 6 to think about over Christmas…

The Unbounders: Justin Pollard (standing) John Mitchinson and Dan Kieran (photo by Rachel Poulton)

A few months ago we were invited to speak at a Futurebook conference organised by the Bookseller. The event was split into two parts. The first half included speakers from traditional publishers sharing their ideas of how publishing could and should change, and the second was billed as talks by people from outside the established publishing world. Therein lies the problem traditional publishers face. The number of ‘outsiders’ are growing, intent on their own kind of change.

This is Part Two of Dean Johnson’s look at how to survive in the cut-throat business of app development. Read Part One here.

RULE THREE: Design and build a great app not a good one

Create an app that does the original (or new) content justice. If you don’t, you will risk Apple rejecting
your title, or worse, the consumer voting with their wallet, star-rating and review.

The app business can be as cut-throat as any other. When Brandwidth launched our first Guinness World Records app in April 2010, we were accused of jumping on the bandwagon as many other developers had either been creating apps for the iPhone or publicly immersed in the publishing world for years.