Kimberly A. Cook

Military Romance Author

digital media

Coffee, Cookies And Hot Books At The Drugstore?

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by Kimberly A. Cook                  (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

Surfing online last week I came across a story about a Seattle Drugstore chain installing an Espresso Book Machine in one of their stores, in conjunction with Kodak Alaris, to make publishing our own books as easy as a trip for chips. Boggles the mind. Imagine what self-published Benjamin Franklin would think if he could see our new printing presses now.

What's on the menu? Cocoa, cookie and freshly baked book?
What’s on the menu? Cocoa, cookie and freshly baked book?

It can never be a bad thing to have cookies, coffee, tea or hot cocoa together with ordering freshly printed books; almost at our tables! I love the smell of toner ink in the morning.

Digital media has changed the publishing game so much in a short amount of time. This is a moment when production process improvements directly impact the ability of everyone to publish books. Whether creating games, videos, pod casts, ebooks, comic books, picture books, interactive web sites or old-fashioned paper, communication and content are King and Queen.

Like we know from Spiderman, “With great power, comes great responsibility,” is even more true in today’s publishing world. I gave up a long time ago trying to be first at anything in this business, I just want to write what I love. It doesn’t happen overnight and that is okay with me.

Whether learning to drive, cook or breakdown an M-16 rifle, certain tasks take time, patience, skill and persistence. Writing is one of those creative arts which benefits from effort and hard work.

To paraphrase Yoda, when the printing process is ready, the author will appear. While we work on our craft and spend time developing our characters and stories, it’s a good idea to keep an eye on the developments in the digital book business. Who knows, our next publisher might be the drive-thru window at Starbucks. (It could happen!)

Read the article here:  http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2013/seattle-based-drugstore-pilots-espresso-book-machine-on-demand-printing-center/

Who Is Going To Report On The Squirrels?

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by Kimberly A. Cook           (Twitter@ WarriorTales)

Girding myself for the big change coming to my life next month; the daily newspaper goes to Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. While this may not seem like a big deal to digital natives who popped out of the womb with a laptop, for us vintage folk it’s a major life change.

A furry friend in Camp Sherman, Oregon. Who knows what he might be plotting?
A furry friend in Camp Sherman, Oregon. Who knows what he might be plotting?

It is part of my morning routine to fetch the newspaper. One letter writer to the paper wanted to know how he was going to explain it to his dog who gets a treat when he brings in the newspaper. I’m thinking that guy is going to have to become Santa paperboy and place a dummy one outside on the porch each night.

Wondering how all this switch to the web was going to actually affect the reporters, the Sunday edition offered up this explanation of how the reporters would send in “Twitter-bits” of news, I’m going to call them, then the “curators” (formerly called editors) will try to muck all these bits together, grab a visual and throw it on the web. Okay, he said it better, but that’s what I’m thinking it sounds like.

Read the article here: http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2013/09/peter_bhatia_digital_focus_mea.html

SO, it seems speed wins in this new era of digital journalism, but I thought that traffic safety ad said speed kills. We shall see. But even more fun for me was the serendipity I will miss of the daily paper where I found a huge squirrel article on the flip side of the editorial article. Titled, “Zapped by Squirrel Power,” in our paper, it is a reprint written by Jon Mooallem with the New York Times News Service.

Fascinating article about why the power grid goes down when squirrel’s  fry themselves by making a “bad connection.” I love squirrels. But this writer has been tracking how many squirrels are causing power outage havoc. Talks about how the power grid folks are trying to prevent squirrels from coming to bad endings.

Which made we wonder if the squirrel scientists are talking to the power grid engineers or if we can’t get some behavior squirrel modification training programs going. Those thoughts confirm I need to get off knitting sabbatical and get back to writing because my muse is running rampant with scissors.

So when I went to find the link to the original squirrel article, imagine my surprise when it ranked as one of the top New York Times articles right now. Squirrels are big nationwide. Who knew?

So what do power squirrels and my daily newspaper going to a four-day publication schedule have in common? I’m hoping they both don’t toast themselves in the process. Because the feature articles I used to write for the newspaper and my blog posts now are both longer than a “twitter-bit,” and they take some time to write; and that’s not a bad thing.

(Squirrel article here. You know you want to read it.) http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/01/opinion/sunday/squirrel-power.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0