We are not a fan of the Amazon Kindle around here. We like the principle of an electronic reading device, of course, but the 1980’s design of the Kindle demonstrates a complete lack of connection with the current age. But there is a device just around the corner that is not only going to give the Kindle a run for it’s money, but will thrash it with a big stick and send it to ebay without any supper.

Just go and take a look at the Readius.

• Let’s laugh at Kindle’s expense and have a look at what the Readius has to offer:
• e-book reader - of course, that’s what it is all about in the first place. A revolutionary flexible screen technology, with the good old mono screen of electronic book readers.
• Audio player - listen to music or podcasts as you read. Nice touch
• RSS - access news, information, blogs, via RSS feeds
• E-mail - both POP and IMAP e-mail support for multiple accounts
• Telephone - that’s right, it’s a mobile phone, too!

True Portability

This is the world’s first consumer device to be released with a flexible, rollable display. These displays appeared last year to some significant excitement, but it has taken a little while for manufacturers to find a proper use for them.As you can see from the Readius site (link above, the screen folds over the main body of the device, resulting in a pocket-sized gadget that, as it’s a phone, too, means less to carry around.

The Kindle is much less portable. About the only time I ever have to sit and read properly is the two-hour commute to the office (not daily, thankfully). I can picture myself popping the Readius in and out of a pocket between trains very easily.

Is there a but?

One area the Readius may fail, and fail big, is the user interface. There’s no point having all this lovelyness without the user experience of both getting your stuff onto the device - Kindle does have that sorted with its wifi access - and navigating and using it once it is there. Remains to be seen whether they have got it right.

2008 looks like it might finally be the year of the electronic book reader, which is truly going to make the publishing industry sit up and listen to the changing winds of readers. Equally important is seeing viable competition to the Kindle likely encouraging Kindle2.0 to become a significantly better product for th user. The space is hotting up nicely!

It has been said many times: read to improve your writing. There’s some sound theory behind that statement, but also some pitfalls for the unwary.

Over at Vigorous Writing, Jesse Hines talks about this very subject and how a strict reading plan can and will help you improve your prose. Though not necessarily through direct techniques, the general increased awareness of other writers’ works can indeed help you to give polish to your own work. It’s hard work, that’s for sure, particularly if you are not accustomed to reading, and as a writer one is always pulled in the direction of wanting to write more rather than become involved in someone else’s writing.

My personal experience with reading has, in the past, actually been quite detrimental to my writing. While searching for the answer to becoming a fully productive writer, I read a great deal across a wide range of genre and author. Unfortunately this merely confused my own writing. Each book I liked, I unconsciously tried to emulate, often discarding past work to re-write in the new style. Each new author delivered new ideas, and so they were also injected into existing work. The result was, as you can guess, a complete lack of any finished piece.

These days, where I am embroiled in the adventures of a group of Edwardian characters, I limit my reading to a greater extent. Truthfully this is as much about simply not having the time to fit in the challenging day-job, writing the stories, and read, as it is avoiding the past pitfalls from the past. Choice of books is determined by what I am writing about, and most of my reading has shifted to research of the period.

Reading is certainly important to understand what other writers are doing and how they tackle certain challenges in plot and characterisation, but the danger of losing one’s own voice must be carefully managed. I can truly say, looking back, I would have had several books written (published is another matter altogether) is I had more carefully managed my reading habits in the past.

It has been quiet around here these past two weeks or so. Sickness has kept me away from blogging both here and on my personal site, but I am glad to say things are starting to get back to normal this week, so expect Today’s Publishing to see some more activity!