Online writing community Wattpad is testing a new program that would let fans help fund projects. The pilot focuses on the work of six writers. Readers can sponsor their favorite writers in the group to help them fund a story, an eBook, or professional services for a work such as editing, design or distribution, in exchange for rewards. Rewards for books include such things as having a character in a story named after the donor or getting a signed copy of a book once it is published.

Here is more from the press release:

The first wave of Wattpad fan funding includes campaigns by Brittany Geragotelis, author of Life’s a Witch which started as a story on Wattpad and was published by Simon and Schuster last year. Writer Tara Sampson aka writer MercyRose had a campaign to continue writing on Wattpad which has already been successfully funded and Jordan aka XxSkater2Girl16xX is on track to reach her goals in a thirty day period.

Follow this link for more details.

D.C.’s Martin Luther King Jr. Library is proving that libraries aren’t just for books – they’re also for 3D printing and book-making. The library is using its $3.4 million grant to provide a publicly accessible 3D printer and an Espresso Book Machine for on demand book printing – great for students and self-publishers. Printing is five cents per gram plus $1 (they say most print jobs costs between $1-$5). The library also has plans to include a “Dream Lab” where users can collaborate on projects ,test drive tablets and e-readers prior to purchasing, and also publish personal novels.

Library manager Nicholas Kerelchuck is optimistic about the library’s 3D printing service as an educational tool:

They’re learning math skills, engineering skill, hard science skills…this is future job experience. I think that in 10 years if someone has experience using a 3-D printer, they are far ahead of the curve.

Read more

Jeff Bezos‘ purchase of The Washington Post shocked the publishing industry this week and one of the big questions that people are asking is whether or not the paper will survive in the print medium under the management of such a digitally-focused owner.

Bezos expressed his ideas of the future of reading in the new documentary film Out of Print. ”If you look at technology over the last 20 years, most of our connected devices, whether it be, you know, a smartphone, or a laptop, these are very good for reading news articles, email messages, blog posts,” he said in the film. “We humans do more than what is convenient and easy for us and so I think there has been a shift over the past 20 or so years away from long-form reading, from book-length reading, and toward short-form reading.”

The film, directed by Vivienne Roumani and executive produced by Aryeh Bourkoff, also includes interviews with publishing industry experts including best-selling novelist Scott Turow and Harvard Librarian Robert Darnton.

Do you think print will survive under Bezos’ direction?

Jeanniey Mullen, the chief marketing officer of digital magazine platform Zinio, is striking out on her own and launching a new agency called YellowBean LLC. She shared the news with her LinkedIn network yesterday afternoon explaining the name of her company comes from a combination of a pair of boots, her nickname and her focus on growth, “The yellow bean is one of the fastest growing plants,” she wrote.

“YB will be working with companies from start up to Fortune 50, who need help building their brand awareness, presence. and driving large scale growth through innovation, partnerships, and other tricks in our toolkit,” Mullen continued. “We will also have a special research and public speaking team to help inspire and innovate others.”

We spoke to Mullen about her favorite app for our What’s Your Favorite App? column this past spring.

Looking to get new readers for your blog? Check out Glipho. The social blogging platform wants to help writers connect with new readers. Like WordPress, you can use the Glipho platform to write and publish blog posts through an online dashboard. The platform is designed to make it easy to share your content to your social audiences, as you can set it up to autotweet your posts on your behalf across various social networks.

Readers can access this content and as they browse around for new blog stories. Readers can curate their profiles to read content based on a specific topic or they can follow specific readers. Like Digg or Reddit, content on Glipho is ranked by and highlighted by users.

Here is more about Glipho from the site: “We want to be the network where you publish your words and express your views. The place which helps you take advantage of all the other networks to create better content, and where you can reach and interact with an even bigger audience.”

If you were one of the unlucky few Kindle owners that had a copy of George Orwell’s 1984 in 2009, you probably know exactly how little ownership you have over your files. Further, you probably know exactly how intangible eBooks can be. What’s a reader to do? Make back-up files of course. For digital media artist Jesse England, the backup file happened to be a paper copy made with a photocopier.

In most instances, I think new electronic media is wonderful. For all their disadvantages, streaming and on-demand media has enabled young or amateur content creators to compete with established publishers unlike ever before. Older or out-of-print works can be newly disseminated with little overhead. I do not fear electronic media; I fear an invisible hand ever at the ready to pull back what I have already purchased for my self.

Read more

Gawker founder Nick Denton has complained in the past about long headlines keeping good stories from appearing in search results. In a move to help crowdsource headline writing and expand sharing, Gawker has plans to roll out a new tool that will let readers tweak headlines and reframe stories before they reblog the stories themselves.

To do so, you have to sign up for a Kinja account. Kinja is Gawker’s beta news aggregation and discussion platform. It picks up the top stories from across the Gawker network and serves readers with a kind-of digital front page where they can read the best performing blog posts. Kinja takes reader participation to the next level by encouraging readers to create mini profiles in order to weed out trolls. Using Kinja, readers will be able to rewrite headlines for stories in order to reach different audiences, before sharing them. Read more

The force is with this eBook: William Shakespeare Star Wars. Iambic Pentameter? Check. Elizabethan inspired drawings? Check. Kindle Version? Check. Unfortunately, this book does not double as a light saber, but I know where to get one.

Return once more to a galaxy far, far away with this sublime retelling of George Lucas’s epic Star Wars in the style of the immortal Bard of Avon. The saga of a wise (Jedi) knight and an evil (Sith) lord, of a beautiful princess held captive and a young hero coming of age, Star Wars abounds with all the valor and villainy of Shakespeare’s greatest plays. ‘Tis a tale told by fretful droids, full of faithful Wookiees and fearstome stormtroopers, signifying…pretty much everything.

Read more

Writing books can be a lonely process. To help make it more collaborative and help writers showcase their work and get feedback, Widbook came along.

The site aims to be like YouTube for books. Writers can upload and share their work and solicit feedback from readers and other authors. Publishers can use the site to scout for new talent and read manuscripts. Using the site is totally free.

The site is hoping to change the process of collaboration. For instance, it makes it easy to co-write books with other members. Here is more from the site: “Widbook is an intelligent platform where new authors and readers find the opportunity to create, explore and collaborate with people their best digital content worldwide.”

Since  the site launched last year, the site has more than 30,000 members and has published more than 1,500 books. The company has a presence in more than 150 countries but the majority of its members are in the U.S.

Better Homes and Gardens is racking up the followers in social media. The magazine announced today that it has more than 1 million fans on Facebook and more than 370,000 followers on Pinterest.

To celebrate the Facebook reach, the publication has released a behind-the-scenes video thanking its fans along with a download of the most-shared content. What kinds of things are readers talking about on the BH&G Facebook fan page? Mostly home related things such as which colors they love in kitchens and what they would fix if they had a handyman for a day.

“Social media lets us stay in constant conversation with our consumer,” stated Gayle Butler, Editor-in-Chief at Better Homes and Gardens. “It enables us to give her quick bites of content throughout her day and also hear what’s on her mind.”