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The company, which went bankrupt earlier this year, will now close all of its remaining 399 stores, with the loss of some 10,700 jobs, according to the Wall Street Journal.

This is sad news for readers, writers and publishers alike, as it means less access to books for readers and a smaller market for writers and publishers. Borders was a big name, and its closure will send shock waves across the book industry. If such a large book empire can close, can smaller chains and independent stores survive?

“Following the best efforts of all parties, we are saddened by this development,” said Mike Edwards, President of Borders. “We were all working hard toward a different outcome, but the head winds we have been facing for quite some time, including the rapidly changing book industry, [ebook] revolution and turbulent economy, have brought us to where we are now.”

The mention of ebooks is important, as this is one factor that brick and mortar stores, and publishers and writers, will need to take into account for the short-term and long-term future. Recent reports from Amazon and others have shown that the ebook industry is booming, and a potential deal with Google later this year to make the largest digital library in the world could have a monumental impact on how we approach reading.

The impact of the closure on authors could be particularly bad, according to Michael Norris, an analyst at Simba Information, who told the Wall Street Journal: “The liquidation of Borders is an irreplaceable loss of a big part of the book-discovery ecosystem. Thousands of people whose job consisted of talking up and selling books will eventually being doing something else, and that’s bad for authors, agents, and everyone associated with the value chain in books.”

“An interesting question [...] is whether there is any protection available for the interactive elements of a website like Pottermore,” said Shireen Peermohamed, an intellectual property specialist at London law firm Harbottle & Lewis.

“These elements, known as graphical user interfaces, are not just the screen visuals, but the interfaces which users can touch or click on to access other materials or navigate themselves to other parts of the site. As such, they can bring books to life and tailor the online experience for individual readers.

“A recent European Court of Justice case has sowed seeds for arguing that the ‘interactive-ness’ of these interfaces may be protected by copyright, quite apart from any protection available for the screen visuals or content, if they are the own intellectual creation of the authors. Sites like Pottermore which are bringing content to readers in new and exciting ways will no doubt want to follow developments in this area to maximise how they can protect what they have created.”

Peermohamed acknowledged that the basic work would be protected by traditional copyright laws, so Rowling need not fear in that regard, but the whole notion of copyrighting the interactive elements raises a number of questions.

Are these really creative works? Does the copyright extend beyond the words to the technology itself, and if it does will patents be required, and what sort of legal wrangling will that result in?

Pottermore could be the guinea pig for all of this, the interactive reading experience that may set a precedent in law, and perhaps also in how writers engage with their fans.

Privacy

Facebook has frequently been criticised for privacy breaches and its woeful approach to privacy in the first place. You don’t know who you’re sharing your information with most of the time and the privacy settings are buried as deep as possible in the options that they’re nigh invisible. And that’s after a revamp to its privacy policies, which were even worse before.

So how does Google do it? This is where Circles come in. You share with specific groups of people, not just anyone and everyone. For example, you add your family to the Family Circle and your work colleagues to the Work Circle. Then when you share about your hard day at the office (or worse!), your boss doesn’t see it. And Google is up front about this from the beginning. Instead of automatically sharing everything with a single subgroup, you choose the group (or groups or individuals) for each individual post or photo.

The great thing about the Circles is the transparency of it all. You know exactly who you’re sharing to from the outset, and if you forget you simply have to hover over where it says, for example, Friends, and it will describe the group and even show you thumbnails of the people in that group that you’re sharing with.

There’s even a “View profile as…” button, which allows you to type in the name of a user and view you profile from their perspective. That way you can make sure someone isn’t seeing too little or too much.

Friends Versus Circles

You don’t really add friends on Google+, you simply add them to your Circles. In this way there’s no Approve or Reject options, as they don’t get to see everything immediately in the first place. If they add you to a Circle you don’t have to add them back, but they will share with you. In a way it’s like Twitter, except instead of following someone, you select someone to share with, and they can decide to share back or not. You can easily block a person by going to their page and selecting the block button, but you can also demote them to a Circle you share with less often, such as Aquaintances.

Like Versus +1

Google’s +1, which launched before Google+ did, is almost a carbon copy of Facebook’s Like button. You can +1 posts within Google+, +1 articles around the web, or even +1 websites directly within a Google search, something that Facebook doesn’t have. Another key difference is that Google+ features a +1 tab, where you can view all your previous +1′s and show them off to your friends. However, the page is private by default, so you have to manually choose to let others see – another nod to privacy.

Interests Versus Sparks

Google+ Sparks is basically a list of your interests, but it differs from Facebook by acting like a live feed of news about those interests. This obviously leverages Google’s search engine background and is a particularly useful feature for getting some updates on a favourite topic. It’s not necessarily the best medium to get the most up to date news, as I found that lots of news was left out, and the articles were in a seemingly random order, as opposed to newest first, but if the kinks are ironed out it could be quite good.

One thing it lacked compared to Facebook was the ability to see other people’s Sparks. The way Facebook highlights similar interests is quite a useful way of seeing what you have in common with someone, and this is completely missing in Google+. I imagine it’s only a matter of time before some equivalent is added or if Sparks gets expanded to add this new functionality.

News Feed Versus Stream

While at face value (I contemplated getting lots of face puns in here, but I’ll settle for just the one) Google+’s Stream looks identical to Facebook’s News Feed, there’s a subtle difference that makes it that little bit better. You can select a Circle and view just the feed from that group. This way if you want to see what your writer buddies are up to, you don’t have to wade through the chatter of everyone else. You can view it all in one go if you want, and you can even view stuff on the Incoming tab from people who are sharing with you, but whom you haven’t yet added to a Circle.

Games

There’s a notorious lack of games on Google+, which some will love and others will hate. I have to admit that this is something that attracts a lot of people to Facebook and social gaming is pretty big, as Zynga alone can point out, but the games and countless invites to this, that and the other thing were often annoying. In fact, I have thousands of invites to play games and install apps that I’ve never read, as I’m simply not interested. Whether or not Google decided to add something like this in the future is not clear, but if it does I can only hope it will employ a bit more restraint than Facebook does.

Chat

Google didn’t even have to bother for an equivalent to the chat at the bottom of the screen on Facebook, as it simply ported over the chat from Gmail. However, one new thing is Hangouts, which are live video chats with specific Circles. The whole idea about these is that you can log into one and start chatting away without whoever in that Circe is online at the time. Of course, they need to join the Hangout too, as it’s not obligatory, but this could be a particularly useful feature, like adding a huge element of the functionality of Skype right into the core of Google+.

Buzz

When Buzz launched it was a bit of a flop and no one really uses it, compared to a rival like Twitter. However, Google+ gives Buzz a new lease of life by adding a Buzz page to your profile. For some this will remain an empty page, but for me, where my Twitter feed is already linked up with Buzz, it means that people can check my latest tweets without ever leaving Google+. Handy, eh?

Groups & Pages

Google+ doesn’t really have an equivalent to Facebook’s groups and pages. Circles isn’t the same as a group devoted a specific topic that people can chime in, discuss, etc., and I couldn’t find a way to set up a page for a company, book, film, etc. Part of this is due to the way Google+ handles interests differently to Facebook, but it’s an area that is, in my opinion, a major flaw to Google+ that I hope will be addressed over time. Having a Facebook page that people can like, and a group dedicated to a specific subject, are two things that Facebook does well. I imagine it’s only a matter of time before Google tries its own versions of these, which will most likely come with a twist.

Messages

Another area that Google+ is lacking in is a messages system. In Facebook you can send the equivalent of an email directly to someone, but there really isn’t that kind of thing available in Google+, unless you simply share a status update directly with just that person and no Circles. That won’t be the same, however, as they may not see it in their feed and you may have difficulty locating it again. There is a Send An Email button, but it doesn’t show on everyone’s profile. Google might be better off adding a built-in mini-Gmail style service to make up for this omission.

Integration

Google+ is completely integrated with most of Google’s other products. Aside from Buzz and +1, you use your Google Account to sign up, which is the same account you access your Gmail from. This means you can find everything in the horizontal bar at the top of the page and can even check for status updates directly within Gmail itself, since they’re displayed in the top right hand corner. If you don’t use Google’s other products this is less useful, but it’s a surefire way for Google to get people to try out other things, such as Gmail and Google Docs.

Mobile

There’s a mobile version of Google+ available, both as a web app and as an Android app, with apps for other mobile operating systems, like the iPhone’s iOS, soon. The main difference between this and the web version is Huddle, which allows group chat.

Another cool feature is an addition to the Stream called Nearby which lets you check the feed of people are who are in your current location. Obviously this would require location tracking to be enabled, but it could be a very useful way of finding out if a friend is in the area whom you might be able to catch up with.

While Facebook has apps for smartphones and tablets, the fact that Google makes Android and it is becoming so popular means it can ensure they work together in a way that outdoes Facebook’s official apps for mobile devices.

Logos

Probably the most important feature of Google+ is the fact that its logo has far more colours than Facebook’s logo.

Of course, this is only the tip of the iceberg, as there are many other elements to Google+ that I have not fully explored. Google’s previous social networking experiments weren’t all that successful, but Google+ addresses many of the areas that Facebook was criticised for, while rethinking other areas without stepping too far away from what people like about Facebook. It’s far from perfect and lacks a few features, but it’s some major competition to Facebook that’s badly needed in the social networking arena.

What’s interesting about this is that Rowling has decided to go it alone instead of using a publisher to make the ebooks for her. Not only does this give her greater control over how they are presented, it gives her a much bigger share of the profits, not that she necessarily needs it at this stage. An ebook deal could have secured her £100 million, but she’s likely to make even more than that through Pottermore.

If this was not evidence enough of how big the ebook game is, I don’t know what is. When Harry Potter was originally released in 1997 ebooks barely existed and they were certainly not in the form we know them today. The first ebook readers didn’t arrive until a year later, but it was only from 2006 onwards, with the release of the Sony Reader, Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook and Apple iPad that ebooks really became a tangible phenomenon.

It could be argued that it’s really only in the last year or two that the industry has copped on to how big ebooks really are, and that largely boils down to the success of the smartphone and tablet markets, with Apple and Google leading the roost. These devices are everywhere now, much more so than dedicated ebook readers, and they often do the job just as well, opening up the world of ebooks to the masses.

The original reason for Rowling’s reluctance to launch ebook versions of the Harry Potter series was the threat of piracy, yet her refusal to sell authorised digital versions led to a huge black market of unauthorised editions. Fans were simply hungry for some Hogwarts antics in ebook form. Thankfully for them Rowling has since seen sense, and since the new versions will be DRM-free (that is, they won’t have copyright protection technology in place), they can be read on any device. This makes them considerably easier to copy and illegally distribute, but there will be a digital watermark in place that identifies the original buyer, so they could face prosecution if they choose to share their copy with others online.

While piracy of digital works is a valid threat, DRM techniques often make it painfully difficult for a reader to enjoy a book on a device that was not originally authorised. Amazon locks its Kindle ebooks to the Kindle device (or Kindle reader on their PC), meaning readers need to buy a separate version for their tablet computer, which is like forcing a reader to buy one paperback to read in the living room and another to read in the bedroom. One solution is for ebook stores to offer all formats for a single purchase, but that’s unlikely to happen when companies are attempting to claim a monopoly on the ebook industry.

For more on the Pottermore project, check out my coverage at The Inquirer.

The British Library previously inked a deal to digitise 40 million newspaper pages with Brightsolid, with a similar price tag and a similar aim to preserve the past and provide greater access for researchers and the generally curious. You can read the full story at TechEye.

While these are of historical importance, Google has been trying for years to secure deals with authors and publishers to digitise their work and let users search through them, sometimes without direct permission from the copyright holder. Google promised it would only show select pages relevant to a user’s search and would link the user to the publisher’s website to buy the full book, but many were unhappy with the potential impact on sales and infringement of copyright.

A settlement that was reached in 2009 was rejected by a court earlier this year, ending Google’s plans to put all books online. However, the judge hinted that a deal could be made in the future, providing Google addressed all of the concerns raised by objectors. The question for authors is, do we want our books digitised by Google? Do we trust that only a sample of the text will be made available via search, and will it have a positive or negative impact on sales?

Personally I can see the benefits of a digital collection, but obviously when a book is still in copyright and there’s still a price tag involved it should be up to the author and/or publisher to decide how much of a sample should be made available. There should always be a sample, in my opinion, like the first chapter or few pages often made available on Amazon. But if a user can perform a search for the title of the second chapter through Google Books and be given access to that part of the book, potentially it could be abused to allow some people to read the entire text without purchasing it, which as an author I simply cannot support.

Now we know that at least 12,000 of them were gained from Writerspace.com, which today admitted it was the victim of a major hack. Lulzsec doesn’t appear to have any motive beyond doing it for the fun of it, so writers need not fear that they are being specifically targeted. It’s likely that a massive security hole was found in the Writerspace website, making it easy to gain access to the database of members. And, of course, I assume the passwords were not encrypted.

Sufficed to say, internet users should make sure they are using more secure passwords and not using them for several different web sites. If you sign up to a website with user@email.com, the name ‘user’ and the password ‘opensesame’ and this is identical to your login and password for that email address then a hack on that website immediately exposes your email address as well. Then if you use the same for Paypal and social networking sites, you’ve effectively revealed your entire online identity. Play it safe.

A writer’s tools are his or her words. Without them a writer is nothing. He or she is just someone staring at a blank page trying to figure out how to get the dancing figures out of his or her mind. A writer with a limited vocabulary is a writer who will struggle to communicate their story to their reader, which means the story will most likely be childish and uninteresting.

It’s obvious that reading more means our vocabulary can be enhanced. But someone might argue for studying a dictionary in this case. This won’t do, because we not only need to learn new words, we need to learn what to do with them. This is where reading what others have written becomes really important. We learn how to craft a story, how to weave words, how to make a simple sentence speak to the reader in a way that the words alone cannot.

A good writer will read often and will read widely. They might choose to read specific books by a specific author to improve their character development, or certain other works to improve their description or ability to convey emotion or tension to the reader.

Another important point is that not only are we learning our craft by reading, we are gaining the knowledge and experience of the other writers who have been learning their craft for a long time before us. Why struggle to enhance your writing when you can tap into the inkwell of the ages and bring hundreds of years of that knowledge and experience to the fore?

Shockingly there are quite a few aspiring writers out there who believe they don’t need to read to write. I guess they don’t, but if they want to write well then they need to stop lying to themselves. Often these people are just too lazy to learn their craft and want to write for the wrong reasons. If they don’t enjoy words enough to read them, how can they enjoy them enough to write them?

On the other hand, they can also prove disastrous if done wrong. A bad movie trailer has stopped me seeing good movies, so a bad book trailer would stop me reading a book I might otherwise pick up on the basis of just the blurb on the back. Even worse, authors who create sloppy and unprofessional book trailers create an expectation of similarly sloppy and unprofessional writing, even though the book itself could be amazing.

Therefore an author needs to decide if they are qualified to make their own book trailer, and to do this they need to look at exactly what they want to achieve. Novel Publicity splits book trailers into four categories: 1) movie style trailer; 2) author interview/reading; 3) slideshow; 4) mini scene.

These are relatively self-explanatory, with the first being the most costly and difficult to produce, but also potentially the most impactful, while the second provides a personal touch by introducing the author to the reader. The third is overdone and usually where the sloppy stuff shows up, as it’s cheap and easy to do. YouTube even has tools that allow you to load up some images and write in some text to create a ‘video’ in minutes, but it’s not the real deal, in my opinion, and generally looks awful. The final option is a fully acted out scene from the book, which could be mixed with the author narrating it.

If an author has absolutely no technical knowledge of video production or the software used to make good videos, then they need to bring in someone who does. A poorly produced video will have a monumentally negative impact on book sales if it’s seen by a large prospective audience. No video at all would be better than something that scares readers away.

Personally I intend to work with the movie style trailer and the author interview/reading approach, all in separate videos. The trailer will be the main attraction, using animation of the characters and scenes from the book. I have some background with animation and will probably use Flash for this, but if I find I cannot achieve my goals I’ll bring in some one who can. The other videos will be easier to make, as they’ll mostly be me talking to the camera. I intend to do a series of interviews, as well as a series of book readings. I may even combine a reading with some animation.

All of these will be available through my YouTube channel, along with other videos of interest. I don’t imagine that many readers search for books through YouTube, but it can never hurt to tackle as many avenues as possible when promoting a new book and/or author.

The first port of call, however, is the initial submission of the manuscript by a writer to an agent or publisher. If it’s printed upside down in white on a white background with fifteen inch margins (I’m sure someone’s tried that, right?) then it’s likely to get thrown in the bin. Style might be a personal thing, and editors often disagree about what is ‘proper’ (the various news outlets I’ve written for all had different house styles, so much so that I had to relearn how to write for each of them), but there’s generally a set of guidelines that most publishing houses follow, and the rules usually boil down to common sense.

For example, double spacing the manuscript is not to make it look longer, it’s to give the editor room to write notes. Using the Courier font is not because Times New Roman isn’t pretty, it’s because Courier is fixed-width and therefore makes it easier to count the words (and you thought bean-counting was bad!).

There’s a really good manuscript formatting guideline at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America website, which can be found here. It doesn’t just give you a list of what to do – it explains why you’re doing it.