Kobo is apparently launching a new touchscreen reader. Kind of cool, I suppose. But what really got me was this Thoreau quote, displayed on the new Kobo without a trace of irony.
Of course, there is a difference between the “book” as in the physical thing with pages and a cover, and “book” as in a collection of ideas strung together along a narrative or theme or some other cohesive device. (I actually wrote a whole blog post on it a few months ago, but was trumped by this post before I published my own. Had to happen, I suppose, though I’m not bitter about it. Really.)
Regardless, you have to think that the Kobo makers — or at least the people writing their ads — had to see the irony in this statement. Is it possible that they used this quote for exactly that reason? I’m no marketing professional (oh, wait…) but it seems to me that if you’re trying to convince everyone to try your new e-reader, I’d think the last thing you’d want to do is piss off your main demographic, i.e. book lovers.
Then again, maybe they’re trying to appeal to book lovers by positioning Kobo as the one e-reader that is a “protector” of books. If you love technology, you’ll love Kindle. But if you love books, you’ll love Kobo. That would be a smart marketing move (if that is what they are trying to do…) but I’m not sure the execution is there in this ad.
Anyway, I found this amusing, and thought I’d share. You can read the article attached here:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2385757,00.asp
On my own writing front — I got some good time in today on the novel. I actually had a couple of quick thoughts I wanted to add in, and ended up spending a couple of hours working on the book. From the top, once again. But unlike yesterday, I felt extremely good about the writing. It’s weird, Sunday I read a scene and it screeches like fingernails on a chalkboard. Today, I read it and (after a few tweaks) it’s like the angels are singing, I swear.
Of course logically I know the truth is likely somewhere in the middle. But I’ll tell you, it’s a lot easier and much more fun to write with the angels.
So why does it swing so far one way or the other? I was trying to figure that out today. My mood hasn’t really changed drastically one day over the other. My attitude towards the work is about the same — I’m enjoying writing it, and despite my misgivings about the writing itself on Sunday, I’m not getting discouraged with the process. I mentioned a couple of days ago that I became slightly self-conscious in my writing after talking with my friend, but not extremely so. That could be it though — that’s the only difference, as far as I can tell. I’ll have to study this more to see if I can put my finger exactly on it.
Anyway, the upshot is that I had a great writing day today, and looking forward to having more time tomorrow to put into it.
Until then,
~Graham
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