Friday, June 22, 2012

I have Seen the Future and it is Paula Todd's tiny e-book , not the fading "bricks and mortar media"

   Right now, right today, right this minute, only one book matters in Canada - in both the news media and in the blog-o-sphere.
   It is tiny and it is virtual, the very antithesis of the tradition that a book's newsworthiness could be literally weighed on a set of luggage scales.

   No 1000 page hardcover published by a big name publisher and featured in bricks'n/mortar bookstores, this work is only 46 pages long (or so they say - because on the internet, no one knows you are a page) and being a virtual ebook, is about as massive as the elusive Higgs boson.
   So what is driving the media & blogger frenzy ?
   The old fundamentals : content, content, content.
    Paula Todd's book title, "Finding Karla Homolka" * , would be story enough in Canada, with about 120% of the Canadian population interested in knowing the whereabouts of the notorious serial killer.
   But the kicker is in the subtitle, as Paula finds the ex-con now a mother of three healthy kids.
   Todd discovered the elusive Karla on her own - scooping the big media - something we bloggers can all cheer on.
  It is true Todd was once a reporter with Canada's biggest private media empire (CTV/Bell Media) so she was no lonewolf freelancer, but rather a well-connected freelancer, but still her story does add a certain frisson to all of us working outside "the bricks and mortar media".....

* The ebook is published by Canadian Writers group, which bills itself as a literary agency for freelancers , not as a publisher (!!!!!!!!)

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