From BuzzFeed:

5. Actually take the last biscuit when they ask you if you want it.

. . . .

7. Fake a British accent at length and expect them to find it amusing.

. . . .

17. Ask them if they’re Australian.

Link to the rest at BuzzFeed and thanks to Catherine for the tip.

PG saw the following advertisement in his paper version of The Atlantic. His first inclination was to skip the QR code in the lower left-hand corner because, in his experience, most of those lead to a lame web page.

For QR newbies, provided you have the appropriate app on your smartphone or tablet, open the app, point your phone’s camera at the QR Code (Quick Response Code) and your phone pops up a web page, an email you can send, etc. It’s like clicking on a link in your browser.

Instead of a lame web page, PG found a nice book marketing location. If you have a QR app, you can scan the QR code off this screen (or at least, PG could) and see what the landing page looks like. If that doesn’t work, PG has some screen shots from his iPhone below.

Here’s where the QR code takes you. (Sorry for the ads at the bottom of the page. They’re put there by PG’s free QR app.)

Scrolling down takes you to a book blurb.

Scrolling further give you several options.

If you want to watch the trailer, it plays on your phone.

You can also download an excerpt to your phone. If you click the Buy the Ebook button, it takes you to the following screen.

Click the Amazon button and you’re taken to an Amazon screen (already signed in if you’ve previously bought stuff from Amazon with your phone).

Scroll down on the Amazon screen and you reach the One-Click Buy button.

PG is not an expert on QR marketing but he thinks this is a good commercial design. There’s lots of information on the landing page and it’s designed for a mobile device, not a web browser. The links are embedded in big buttons that are easy to push on a small screen. The option to purchase is prominent without looking intrusive.

The most important step is persuading someone who is sitting and reading a paper publication to get out their phone and scan the QR code in the first place.

Most ads PG has seen put the QR code all the way at the bottom, often in the bottom right corner as a ignorable black on white graphic that’s not integrated into the advertisement.

The book’s ad makes the code more prominent by placing it within a colored circle superimposed over the book’s page and having the pistol pointing at it. The book’s text ends with a lovely “I trust no one . . .” followed by an excellent call to action in a prominent type face: “Scan To Keep Reading” that leads to the code. The art director and artist did a lot of work to draw your eye to the QR code in a way that encourages you to pull out your phone.

Since most people scan a page left to right beginning at the top left, the code’s placement on the center-left of the page above the bottom and above the last line of type seems better than the bottom right because readers are more likely to abandon the page the closer they get to the end.

So, here’s a question – How many of you have used QR codes and what’s been your experience?

As an update to yesterday’s post about Mrs. PG’s free book promo, her book is currently ranked on the following Amazon free ebook lists:

#1 on Historical Romance

#2 on Romance

#4 on Literature and Fiction

#5 on Kindle eBooks (both fiction and non-fiction)

Her promotion was via Bookbub email plus her normal social media outlets.

I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath, and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.

Emily Brontë, last lines of Wuthering Heights

But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.

A.A. Milne, last lines from The House At Pooh Corner

From The Guardian:

With more than 40% of the world’s estimated 7,000 languages”endangered and at risk of extinction”, an army of tiny publishers is fighting an unsung battle to save them. UK press Diglot Books is one of them, and this week took on the might of Amazon to get its Cornish children’s story out to readers.

. . . .

Director Alison O’Dornan said  [the publisher petitioned Amazon to reverse its decision] “on the basis that our title was actually bilingual and that the Cornish translation had been checked by an examiner for the Cornish Language Board, and also that the alphabet was the same as English so there were no extra characters needed”. When this had no effect, she turned to social media for support.

“The great news is that Amazon have indeed backed down after the support that we have generated, and have now agreed to publish the Cornish title,” said O’Dornan, who hailed it as a testament to the power of social media in “allowing a minnow such as ourselves to change the minds of a big company”.

Link to the rest at The Guardian and thanks to John for the tip.

From The Bismark Tribune:

 Award-winning author Louise Erdrich has been named the 39th recipient of the North Dakota Theodore Roosevelt Rough Rider Award, the state’s top honor.

Gov. Jack Dalrymple announced Monday that he will present the award to Erdrich during a ceremony April 19 in Wahpeton. Erdrich, who was born in Little Falls, Minn., in 1954, and lives in Minneapolis, grew up in Wahpeton. She is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa.

“I will always consider Wahpeton, and the Turtle Mountains of North Dakota, my home,” Erdrich said in a statement. “As I’ve been helped by powers beyond my ordinary talents, this award is for all. It honors my family, teachers, friends, ancestors, the characters in my books, and the generosity of this land.”

. . . .

Erdrich is the author of 14 novels, as well as volumes of poetry, children’s books, and a memoir of early motherhood. Her book “The Plague of Doves” was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2009. Her latest novel, “The Round House,” won the National Book Award for fiction.

The Rough Rider Award — named after the former U.S. president who once ranched in the North Dakota Badlands — is presented by the state’s governor to those who have been influenced by North Dakota in achieving national recognition in their chosen fields.

Link to the rest at The Bismark Tribune

From the Mississippi Sun-Herald:

Harry Weathersby Stamps, ladies’ man, foodie, natty dresser, and accomplished traveler, died on Saturday, March 9, 2013.

Harry was locally sourcing his food years before chefs in California starting using cilantro and arugula (both of which he hated). For his signature bacon and tomato sandwich, he procured 100% all white Bunny Bread from Georgia, Blue Plate mayonnaise from New Orleans, Sauer’s black pepper from Virginia, home grown tomatoes from outside Oxford, and Tennessee’s Benton bacon from his bacon-of-the-month subscription.

. . . .

He excelled at growing camellias, rebuilding houses after hurricanes, rocking, eradicating mole crickets from his front yard, composting pine needles, living within his means, outsmarting squirrels, never losing a game of competitive sickness, and reading any history book he could get his hands on. He loved to use his oversized “old man” remote control, which thankfully survived Hurricane Katrina, to flip between watching The Barefoot Contessa and anything on The History Channel.

. . . .

Harry took fashion cues from no one. His signature every day look was all his: a plain pocketed T-shirt designed by the fashion house Fruit of the Loom, his black-label elastic waist shorts worn above the navel and sold exclusively at the Sam’s on Highway 49, and a pair of old school Wallabees (who can even remember where he got those?) that were always paired with a grass-stained MSU baseball cap.

Harry traveled extensively. He only stayed in the finest quality AAA-rated campgrounds, his favorite being Indian Creek outside Cherokee, North Carolina. He always spent the extra money to upgrade to a creek view for his tent.

. . . .

He particularly hated Day Light Saving Time, which he referred to as The Devil’s Time. It is not lost on his family that he died the very day that he would have had to spring his clock forward. This can only be viewed as his final protest.

Link to the rest at Mississippi Sun-Herald

INTERVIEWER

At what age did you know you were going to follow a literary profession? Was there a particular incident, or moment?

WHITE

I never knew for sure that I would follow a literary profession. I was twenty-seven or twenty-eight before anything happened that gave me any assurance that I could make a go of writing. I had done a great deal of writing, but I lacked confidence in my ability to put it to good use. I went abroad one summer and on my return to New York found an accumulation of mail at my apartment. I took the letters, unopened, and went to a Childs restaurant on Fourteenth Street, where I ordered dinner and began opening my mail. From one envelope, two or three checks dropped out, from The New Yorker. I suppose they totaled a little under a hundred dollars, but it looked like a fortune to me. I can still remember the feeling that “this was it”—I was a pro at last. It was a good feeling and I enjoyed the meal.

Read it all The Paris Review

guest posted by Barbara Morgenroth

From Pew Internet, by Kathryn Zickuhr

Our new report takes a close look not only at how Americans are using public libraries, but also what sort of services and programming they think libraries should offer — and what they say they would use in the future…

For this last point, we asked about a range of potential offerings, including online “ask a librarian”-type research service, mobile library apps, library kiosks in the community, and pre-loaded e-readers available for checkout….

…we also wanted to include illustrations of some of these more innovative services, to see what they look like on the ground. To that end, we’ve collected examples of many of the types of services mentioned in the report, as well as some “fun and funky” services that we’ve seen pop up at libraries across the county….

Technology “Petting Zoo”

The Kent Free Library in Ohio “has hosted ‘Technology Petting Zoos’ to give patrons and community members a chance to have hands-on interaction with a variety of tablets and e-readers. In the library’s meeting room, 12 different devices are available to try out with a librarian on hand to explain their features and detail the differences between various devices.”

“Redbox”-style library kiosks and outreach services

“In 2008, the Contra Costa County Library [in California] launched ‘Library-a-Go-Go,’ the first automated book dispensing machines in the country. The machines hold up to 400 books which can be browsed from a touch screen. The book dispensaries at available 24/7 and operate like ATM machines with a swipe of a library card to dispense books. Users can have up to three books checked out at a time and return the books to the Library-a-Go-Go machines.”…

Libraries as incubators and creation spaces

The Library as Incubator Project“highlights the ways that libraries and artists can work together, and works to strengthen these partnerships. At a time in which both libraries and arts organizations are often having to do more with less, it makes sense for these two parts of our culture to support each other….

Musical Instrument Check-Out Program – Lopez Island (Wash.) Library

• “The Lopez Island Library offers a collection of musical instruments available for patron checkout. All the items come with carrying cases, tuners, and how-to guides, and a practice amplifier for the electric guitar. The items circulate for 28 days, like other library items.”…

LibraryFarm – Northern Onondaga (N.Y.) Public Library

• “The LibraryFarm is an organic community garden on one-half acre of land owned by Northern Onondaga Public Library in Cicero, NY. Anyone can ‘check out’ a plot for no cost. Its purpose is to teach and learn ‘food literacy,’ as well as to preserve knowledge that our grandparents might have had but that never got passed down, and to provide fresh organic produce for local food pantries.”…

Telescopes – “The Portland Public Library, Curtis Memorial Library in Brunswick and Raymond Village Library in Maine offer telescope checkout for patrons. As part of the program, local astronomy clubs, who serve as the caretakers for the telescopes, host sky gazing parties, sidewalk events and other programs at libraries on how to use the telescope and how to look at the night sky.”…

The full article is at Innovative library services “in the wild”