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George Walkley

@georgewalkley.com

290 followers 200 following 380 posts

Independent consultant, MBA, NED, Chair @midascampaigns.bsky.social, board @bdspublishing.bsky.social, AI/Policy @independentpublishersguild.com, advisor @xigxaguk.bsky.social. Strategy, AI, books, games.

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George Walkley @georgewalkley.com · 1d

Wired: self-replicating production mode
Expired: self-facilitating media node 😉

George Walkley @georgewalkley.com · 1d

C'est moi

Cédric Mas @cedricmas.bsky.social · 1d

Bonjourrrr

Même du capitaine Haddock dépité qui dit « quelle semaine !!?! » et Tintin qui répond « Capitaine on est mercredi »

George Walkley @georgewalkley.com · 2d

I mean, that feels a bit like the answer is n+1 where n is the current total…

George Walkley @georgewalkley.com · 2d

Huh. Mainz was on my list for a visit. You may have saved me a trip.

George Walkley @georgewalkley.com · 3d

Old enough to remember “01 if you’re outside London”

George Walkley @georgewalkley.com · 9d

Yes, it felt like a very tabloid approach to a nuanced story.

George Walkley @georgewalkley.com · 10d

Too kind 🙏

George Walkley @georgewalkley.com · 10d

…a robust work level identifier could potentially have helped with identification and disambiguation of titles in the settlement.

For the books business, there’s a real sense of the road not taken.

I’m not even getting into the lack of universal public ISBN data, that’s a rant for another day.

George Walkley @georgewalkley.com · 10d

Among many other things, DY cared about standards, processes and data. I remember discussing ISTC with him. It struck me as a great idea with ferocious implementation challenges.

But looking at the vast amounts of potentially inconsistent data in Bartz v. Anthropic, I’m struck by how much…

George Walkley @georgewalkley.com · 10d

I say ‘was’. ISTC was published as an ISO standard in 2009. The organisation responsible for it closed in 2017, no one would take responsibility for it, and it was withdrawn in 2021.

I went to a few meetings about this back in the day at the behest of David Young, that peerless publishing CEO.

George Walkley @georgewalkley.com · 10d

Simplifying again, the ISTC was an attempt to make sense of that: a work level identifier that would be genuinely unique to each book. So for any given ISTC you’d be able to see all the associated ISBNs. Or query an ISBN to determine the parent ISTC.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interna...

International Standard Text Code - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

George Walkley @georgewalkley.com · 10d

Simplifying massively, you would normally expect to see one ISBN per publisher per format. So if you have a US publishing deal, different ISBNs for hardcover, softcover, ebook, audio. If you have a UK deal as well, perhaps another four. Plus every other language the book is published in.

George Walkley @georgewalkley.com · 10d

This will be meaningful to a few dozen people, but thinking about this in the context of the late ISTC standard.

If you’re not deep in publishing standards conversations, you wouldn’t have heard of it.

You have probably heard of ISBNs—10 or 13 digit identifiers for books.

George Walkley @georgewalkley.com · 10d

…including US copyright registration, date criteria and beneficial ownership where rights are sublicensed. Don’t envy the settlement administrator their work: making sense of data and contracts across nearly half a million in-scope works will be fiendishly complex

George Walkley @georgewalkley.com · 10d

Very good webinar today organised by @publishersassoc.bsky.social and @independentpublishersguild.com on the proposed Bartz v. Anthropic settlement, with an informative presentation and Q&A with publisher class counsel Oppenheim & Zebrak. Key questions from publishers on eligibility criteria…

George Walkley @georgewalkley.com · 11d

I’m so sorry for your loss Mark. My father passed this summer so I can imagine some of what you’re experiencing. I’m glad there are stories and laughter with the tears. Take care of yourself and your loved ones.

George Walkley @georgewalkley.com · 12d

Just started a non-fiction book and the epigraph to the first chapter misattributes a Rebecca Solnit quote. Amazing to me that neither author nor editor spotted it. Instant credibility loss.

A page from the first chapter of the book The New Political Capitalism misnaming Rebecca Solnit in its opening quote.

George Walkley @georgewalkley.com · 14d

A hugely important update for authors and publishers: you may not be eligible, it's a defined list of titles based on US copyright registration and date eligibility, not everything in LibGen. But take five minutes to be sure 👉

Independent Publishers Guild @independentpublishersguild.com · 14d

If you think you are entitled to a share of the $1.5bn class action settlement with AI firm Anthropic in the US, you can now file a claim.

The settlement website has all the info including a searchable database of eligible titles, claim forms and FAQs www.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com
#booksky

ANT Homepage | ANT

www.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com

George Walkley @georgewalkley.com · 14d

I really like the Tomtoc Navigator-T66: great build quality, has a passthrough strap for a suitcase, available in 28l and 40l options, storage is well thought out and accessible. The 40l is too big for a daily driver, but I can do a week of business travel without checking bags.

George Walkley @georgewalkley.com · 15d

Oh, well played 👏

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 15d

We are thrilled to announce that our NEW Large Language Model will be released on 11.18.25.

Reposted by George Walkley

David Barnett @davidmbarnett.bsky.social · 15d

It's the perfect time of year to investigate ROADS TO WITHERED HILL, the immersive audio experience developed by @tomabba.studio to accompany my folk horror novel. It's free and you just need to plug yourself into your phone and go for a VERY unsettling short walk.
discover.witheredhill.place

Roads to Withered Hill

Roads to Withered Hill

discover.witheredhill.place

George Walkley @georgewalkley.com · 16d

Look forward to reading that. I didn't make the obvious macro point yesterday, but playing it in 1990/91, war in Europe seemed a diminishing possibility and the Pax Americana more certain, now those positions are reversed. And thanks for the reply!

George Walkley @georgewalkley.com · 17d

ChatGPT not only translated it but proposed an idiomatic usage. I'm thinking of having "Noch ein Punkt auf meinem Scheißeberg" put onto a t-shirt.

George Walkley @georgewalkley.com · 17d

The tone seems darker and more realistic: mechanics like pushing rolls at the risk of physical or psychological trauma, or trade-offs on experience and empathy feel very different to the original game.

George Walkley @georgewalkley.com · 17d

Really enjoyed the piece—thank you. Having played T2K 2e quite uncritically back in the day, and 4e much more uncomfortably this year, I'm interested if you have any thoughts on the Free League reboot. Contra to some of the reactions to 1/2e, 4e certainly feels tonally more European, nuanced to me.