According to a Friday post on the Lulu site, ebook creators published 115,517 new ebooks on Lulu.com in 2011, an increase of 22 per cent over 2010. More than 60,000 of those titles are now available in the iBookstore or Nook Bookstore.

The self-publishing partner says it now has 620,000 titles in its ebook catalogue and is planning for “the next generation” of ebooks.

The two-week event, Enlighten, will see animated interpretations of Enlightenment quotations projected onto historic buildings in the city’s New Town area. The words of David Hume, James Hutton, Allan Ramsay, Robert Fergusson, Adam Smith and Lady Cockburn will be featured.

Six contemporary writers have also been commissioned to record new fiction and poetry that ‘responds to the wisdom” of the Enlightenment figures. The works of Gavin Inglis, William Letford, Kirsty Logan, Ken MacLeod, James Robertson and JL Williams will be available to download, along with details of the architectural and literary history of each area.

Enlighten will be unveiled March 1, a date chosen to coincide with the launch of a campaign aimed at persuading tourism businesses to make more of the city’s literary legacy.

Ali Bowden, director of the Edinburgh Unesco City of Literature Trust, sees the project matching the city’s architectural brilliance with its world-renowned literature. It will “provide an arresting experience for passers-by, both locals and visitors, as well as a focal point for those planning a trip to Edinburgh,” he told The Scotsman.

Edinburgh was designated the world’s first city of literature in 2004.

http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/heritage/historic-sites/edinburgh_s_new_town_to_celebrate_literary_history_1_2115186

The author of eight books and many children’s stories, she was probably best known for Pit Pony, the story of a boy and his horse working in the Cape Breton coal mines, which was published in 1990. The book was made into a Gemini-winning film in 1997 and spun off into a 44-episode series in 1999.

Barkhouse came late to professional writing. Her first published book, George Dawson: The Little Giant, came out in 1974 when she was a 61-year-old grandmother.

Many of her works reflected Nova Scotia life. Long-time friend Janet Lunn, a children’s author herself, told the CBC that Barkhouse was “Nova Scotia through and through.”

“She loved Nova Scotia like no other place all her life,”

In 2007, Barkhouse received the Order of Nova Scotia and in 2009 she became a member of the Order of Canada. She was also an honorary life member of the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia and of the Writers’ Union of Canada.

Apple introduced the iBooks Author last month as part of its plunge into the educational/textbook market, but MacPhail thinks the publishing software could serve as a platform for a new form of media-rich journalism.

And not just journalists. Magazine and newspaper publishers should also find the new platform useful.

“Here’s a free tool that’s a better alternative than an ad hoc paperback, or special section, as a way to package a multipart series,” he says in a January 25 column. “Here’s a platform that encourages readers to touch, listen to, watch, engage with and learn from your story. Here’s software that gives anyone the opportunity to tell great stories, in new ways.”

MacPhail says he found the software quick and easy to use. You’ll need a Macintosh computer running the latest version of OSX (Lion) and an iPad to preview and test your book on, however.

A veteran print and online journalist, MacPhail writes regularly for rabble.ca on technology and the Internet.

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph’s Anita Singh, the author of Freedom and The Corrections said he prefers a more permanent technology.

“The technology I like is the American paperback edition of Freedom,” he told Singh. “I can spill water on it and it would still work! So it’s pretty good technology. And what’s more, it will work great 10 years from now. So no wonder the capitalists hate it. It’s a bad business model.”

Speaking at the annual Hay Festival Cartagena in Colombia last month, Franzen argued that e-books will never have the magic of the printed page.

“Maybe nobody will care about printed books 50 years from now, but I do,” he said. “When I read a book, I’m handling a specific object in a specific time and place. The fact that when I take the book off the shelf it still says the same thing – that’s reassuring.

“Someone worked really hard to make the language just right, just the way they wanted it. They were so sure of it that they printed it in ink, on paper. A screen always feels like we could delete that, change that, move it around. So for a literature-crazed person like me, it’s just not permanent enough.”

Franzen’s Hay Festival press conference was the first in his career.

Citing the Wall Street Journal and ArsTechnica, MacRumors said Apple may be coming out with a tool that would make the publishing process as easy as creating a song in GarageBand.

MacRumors suggested Apple may also be preparing to announce support for the ePub 3 standard as well, and hopes to open the door for publishers to create interactive ebooks.

MacRumors also points to other sources, however, who are pooh-poohing the GarageBand prediction and say the event is being over-hyped. They’re looking for something more modest on support to the textbook industry.

The stop-action animation has gone viral since being posted January 9. By week’s end, more than one million people had viewed the video, which has also been featured on major television stations in Canada.

Created by Sean Ohlenkamp, art director at ad agency Lowe Roche, the two-minute video gives us a glimpse of what goes on in these bookstores when the human folk have left for the day. Original music from the Grayson Matthews studio helps set a magical mood.

The video took four nights to film, with a gaggle of volunteers helping to shelve and reshelve the books through the wee hours, from store closing at 6 p.m. to reopening at 10 the next morning.

You can see the video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKVcQnyEIT8&feature=share, at Type Books or at the Grayson Matthews website.

Local media reports say the Book Mark is set to close by the end of this month. The store, which is located on Bloor Street West in Etobicoke, claims to be Toronto’s oldest independent bookstore, with more than 45 years of operation.

The closure is being blamed on a sharp rise in rent and high property taxes.

The Book Mark announcement continues a trend that has seen the closure of several Toronto books stores over the past few years. The list includes The Flying Dragon, Pages, This Ain’t the Rosedale Library, Ballenford Books, David Mirvish Books, and McNally Robinson Booksellers.

Neither the location nor the topic of the announcement has been confirmed, but speculation has it that the event will focus on publishing and e-books sold through the Apple’s iBooks platform.

Alexia Tsotsis of TechCrunch says the event may unveil improvements to the iBooks platform, at least according to one of her sources. That same source says the event will not be a major one.

She promises to stay on top of the story, as does Kara Swisher of AllThingsD.

Writers Ian Rankin, Joanna Skibsrud and Miriam Toews have provided short story-starters. Students are encouraged to select one of them as a jumping off point, then complete the story in 500 words or less.

Entries may be submitted online to writeacrossontario@harbourfrontcentre.com before the February 1 deadline.

Submissions will then be judged by the Authors at Harbourfront Centre in conjunction with Open Book, with a winner selected from each grade. Each winner will receive a cash prize of $500 and will have the chance to see his or her work published in the Open Book Magazine.

For more details on the Write Across Ontario Creative Writing Competition, please visit http://www.litontour.com/write-across-ontario.