Trends

Forbes has joined a group of 30 clients using Narrative Science software to write computer-generated stories.

Here’s more about the program, used in one corner of Forbes‘ website: “Narrative Science has developed a technology solution that creates rich narrative content from data. Narratives are seamlessly created from structured data sources and can be fully customized to fit a customer’s voice, style and tone. Stories are created in multiple formats, including long form stories, headlines, Tweets and industry reports with graphical visualizations.”

The New York Times revealed last year that trade publisher Hanley Wood and sports journalism site The Big Ten Network also use the tool. In all, 30 clients use the software–but Narrative Science did not disclose the complete client list.

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Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.

There are 335,924 people on LinkedIn who list “blogging” as one of their skills. That figure rose 27 percent over the last year.

At the same time 1.5 million users listed “writing” as a skill while 824,000 added “editing” and 408,000 included “publishing.” What do you think about these new figures?

LinkedIn emailed users this morning, encouraging them to add skills to their profile on the work-related social network–giving a picture of the sheer number of writers on the network. If you want to meet some of those writers, check out our LinkedIn Groups for Publishing Professionals.

As the holiday season nears, one Reddit user posted this inspiring picture of a Book Christmas Tree. UPDATE: Explore our growing Book Christmas Tree Farm for inspiring photographs of other holiday book trees.

The Book Christmas Tree has already earned thousands of views. It is a simple but powerful way to show your support for print books and bookstores in this digital age. If you build your own, be sure to email GalleyCat a photograph.

We only have one question: What book will you put on top of your Book Christmas Tree?

As Halloween nears, it’s time for our annual feature on literary costume ideas. The blogosphere was bursting with ideas last year, but we’d love to hear more suggestions–especially literary costumes for this GalleyCat editor’s one-year-old baby…

Share all your ideas at the #literarycostumes hastag created by Random House. 

Adventurous Writer pointed us toward a brilliant Curious George Man in the Yellow Hat costume (pictured, via).

The Book Bench set up a Flickr page collecting the best photos of literary Halloween costumes.

 

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The Books They Gave Me is a new Tumblr blog collecting memories of books shared by lovers.

Here’s one story from the blog: “He, lovelorn literary loser, just like me—but better at even that than I was, for I was a mere apprentice—gave me a hardcover edition of the complete poems of William Blake. I’d brought him to the legendary Hyde Park, Chicago Powell’s, and the Blake edition was on my shopping list. I was back in school at 34, newly divorced, to finish the BA in English Literature I should have taken the first time around. Starry-eyed, in love with the man and the poems, I found the book, but sadly noted its $70 price tag…”

So we just had to ask: What’s the best book you ever received as a gift from your lover? If you want to share the story of that particular gift book, email the blog with your submission. The guidelines are simple: “submit a few paragraphs and a valid URL for a cover image of the exact edition you were given, if possible.”

 

The next time somebody asks you “What is steampunk?” just show them the trailer for the upcoming documentary, Vintage Tomorrows. (embedded above).

The documentary already includes authors Cherie Priest and Cory Doctorow, so we look forward to the parts about steampunk books. This GalleyCat editor has found himself stumbling to explain the word “steampunk” in the past, a unique blend of science fiction, historical fiction and crazy creativity.

Here’s more about the movie: “Trailer for the coming future casting documentary ‘Vintage Tomorrows’ about what Steampunk can teach us about the future.”

Trying to write about hipsters but don’t speak the language? No problem. There is a new website that can help you generate hipster lingo automatically.

Hipster Ipsum helps you create “Artisanal filler text for your site or project.” You can get four paragraphs of hip words in your choice of flavor: “Hipster with a shot of Latin.,” or “Hipster, neat.”

Here is the first in series of meaningless hipster jargon that the hipster writing machine created for us: “Beard lo-fi cred, yr scenester art party vinyl put a bird on it. Farm-to-table 3 wolf moon locavore, wayfarers portland carles high life leggings tumblr. Skateboard portland farm-to-table mustache, banh mi tofu ethical. Salvia synth four loko lo-fi, artisan master cleanse +1. Banh mi raw denim aesthetic whatever retro food truck. Artisan echo park freegan sartorial 8-bit bicycle rights, farm-to-table cosby sweater twee tattooed fanny pack whatever Austin messenger bag williamsburg. Mustache lo-fi next level master cleanse before they sold out put a bird on it scenester, cosby sweater cliche retro lomo mixtape bicycle rights.” (Via BoingBoing)

Writers Veronica Roth, Marie Lu and Erin Morgenstern all landed movie deals for their debut novels.

Roth released Divergent in May; Morgenstern’s book The Night Circus is due out in September and Lu’s title Legend will hit bookstores in late November. Lu sold her book’s movie rights to CBS Films. Summit Entertainment snatched up the rights to Roth and Morgenstern’s novels.

According to Variety, Harry Potter film producer David Heyman is interested in The Night Circus film. Deadline reported that Twilight film producers Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey are looking at Legend. All three authors made an appearance at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con.

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In the video embedded above, YA writer John Green revealed the title for his new book (The Fault in Our Stars) and promised to sign every single one of the 150,000 books in the first print run.

Even though the manuscript is currently unfinished and the cover has yet to be finalized, the title hit #1 on the Amazon and BarnesandNoble.com bestseller list recently. Green said the publication date has been moved up from May 2012 to January 2012. The author will be video-recording himself throughout the entire signing process; the video will be available on the Vlogbrothers YouTube channel he shares with his brother, Hank Green.

Here’s more from Green’s announcement: “I am doing this because 1. I like my readers, and 2. I want to find a way to thank them for choosing to read my books in this media-saturated world, and 3. I can’t tour everywhere, and it seems weird to preference readers who live near big metropolitan areas of the US over other readers, plus 4. I think it will be kind of fun unless my hand falls off.”

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Goodreads has partnered with First Book, a charity group whose mission is to make sure children who reside in low-income communities are able to have access to books. Together, these two organizations will be fighting illiteracy using the Goodreads Book Club.

Every time 10,000 Goodreads members add A Visit From the Goon Squad to their shelves, the organization promises to donate 1,000 books. So far, 25,000 members have added the book. If another 5,000 members follow, then Goodreads will provide 3,000 books.

Here’s more from the site’s blog post: “Our initial goal is to donate 5,000 books—which means we need 50,000 people to add A Visit From The Goon Squad by August 2, when the Book Club concludes with a live video chat with author Jennifer Egan. If more than 50,000 people add the book before the end date, we will honor our pledge and donate up to 10,000 books!”