Category: Discussions
What Holds Back Aspiring Authors?
Many of us readers, even if not entirely serious about our aspirations or literary future, have probably considered the idea of writing a book, and many of us have tried or started the process. I would estimate that thousands, or perhaps even tens of thousands, of non-published people sit down every year and being working…
Why You Should Review Books
Reviewing is a strange phenomenon. Tens of thousands of people, often individuals who have never created anything like the works they are reviewing, sitting around and praising or degrading a work based on particular facets and personal preference. Despite how uninformed or mind-numbing some reviews (and reviewers) can be, I want to take the next…
AI Has Started to Hurt Books
The era of the AI-generated book is upon us, and it is rather ugly. Fortunately, these immensely subpar works are still easy to spot, and are highly unlikely to ever be printed by reputable publishers, such as Faber & Faber, Penguin, or Vintage. But, with the future of entirely human-written books being gradually placed further…
How Many Books Can One Tree Make? (Including Recycling)
This question dawned on me one night when thinking about deforestation, and I felt compelled to write this quick post guestimating an answer. If you’re at least a backseat advocate for the environment, then I think you should care about how many works can be printed from the metaphorical sacrifice of a single tree. After…
You Will Never Read Every Published Book, Ever
Many of us like to imagine we are regular, adept readers who get through thousands upon thousands of pages per year—and we are! Various sources suggest that reading anywhere between ten-to-twenty standard length books per year places you well above the average person, so well done with that. But, as I outlined in an older…
How Many Books Can You Read in a Year?
A while back, I made a post about pacing yourself to achieve your yearly reading goals. It was aimed to be a realistic and practical breakdown of what is feasible for the average person, and roughly how much weekly time they would have to dedicate to reading in order to hit their yearly goal. But…
What Is the Ideal Book Length?
We all know books can vary in size, but their length is often much more important than their dimensions. Whilst there is no clear-cut answer to what the ideal length for a book is, you can still create a rough overview and estimation based on your preferences as a reader. So let’s go through an…
Will AI Be Used to Make Book Cover Art?
We’ve already seen AI ‘artwork’ beginning to infest a lot of media, including physical items like print clothing, posters, mugs, and even colouring books. Take this post as an extension of one I wrote not that long ago, where I wondered about how AI could aid in translating books and what the potential caveats are….
Paperback or Hardcover?
When it comes to physical prints of books, some people hold a preference for whether they read from a paperback print or a more durable hardcover version. Some people couldn’t care less. But why do we sometimes lean towards one or the other? And what are the advantages and drawbacks of either format? Paperback Given…
AI and Book Translation
Let me get one thing straight: I essentially hate artificial intelligence. I don’t hate it for what it is, nor am I ignorant to the many positives it can introduce into the engineering, healthcare, IT, and business sectors. I simply fear and resent its advancements and endangerment of the arts—namely illustration, photography, writing, and potentially…
