We are thrilled to announce the wider availability of our books on all Android-based devices, including NOOK Tablet and Kindle Fire.

• NOOK Tablet owners can find our books in the NOOK store,
• Fans with Android phones or tablets can purchase our books through the Google Play Store (fka the Android Marketplace),
• And we’ve added Kindle Fire to our previously-supported E Ink Kindle family

In addition to broadening our distribution, we’re having fun working with the NOOK team! Not only are they across the street, but they firmly agree that every business meeting is better with pie. We celebrated last week with Lisa’s newly renamed NOOKona Mud Pie and look forward to some exciting new projects this summer!

Want to help spread the word? Tweet it out!

4.2 – Lisa dies

I have no idea where it came from or who wrote it, which has made it kind of creepy and awesome at the same time.

Being the organized sort, I dutifully set up a calendar invitation. My Post-It grim reaper didn’t include a year, so I made it an all-day occurrence, recurring annually. Notably, Waynn accepted my death within minutes, while Jennifer rejected it.

I know who is getting the biggest slice of pie from now on.

Waynn’s all-to-easy acceptance of my annual passing aside (I mean, really…you couldn’t have at least waited an hour, Waynn?), I actually kind of like having a death day. I don’t celebrate my birthday, Valentine’s Day, or really any holiday. But a death day? For me, it’s been a nice gentle reminder from the paper supply gods that life is too short to not be enjoying every day.

It has also provided fodder for a new office game: “If Lisa’s life were a [insert book genre], she would [insert method of death].”

In the past few weeks, I’ve been drowned by a jealous mermaid, eaten by an alligator, thrown off a building by an angel, only to be devoured by a hoard of super-hot zombies, and (of course) accidentally beaten to death by Grey. The good news is that in most cases, the afterlife is filled with an astounding array of incredibly attractive angels, demons, warlocks, vampires, and other lost souls, all of whom are perfectly eager to help me unravel the mystery of my death, so that I can rejoin the living world.

However, last week, I decided to try making a new pie, in honor of Heidi Kling, Nephele Tempest, Pam van Hycklama, and Annette Pollert, henceforth known as the Thin Mint Gang (TMG), due to an awesome moment at this year’s San Francisco Writer’s Conference, when a girl scout strolling through the hotel lobby hit paydirt with our bevvy of starving literary ladies.

Fast-forward to the next day, when Waynn turned down a girl scout selling cookies at the office. Aside from the fact that I now blame him for single-handedly crushing her entrepreneurial dreams, he managed to slightly redeem himself by sending around a link to Dreyer’s limited edition thin mint ice cream…which led to Lisa’s Thin Mint Ice Cream Pie!

We ate the first one last week at Innovation Endeavors in Palo Alto, and I am officially adding it to my pie rotation. If you’d like to make it at home, here’s the recipe:

Lisa’s Thin Mint Ice Cream Pie

crust:

3 sleeves of thin mint cookies (that leaves one sleeve for snacking and decorating)

7 T butter, melted

ice cream layer: 1 gallon Dreyer’s Thin Mint Ice Cream

fudge layer: 1/4 lb of fudge, melted

mocha custard layer:

I used Martha Stewart’s recipe: http://www.marthastewart.com/316400/mocha-custards, but if you don’t have a lot of time, you can replace with instant mousse (I don’t judge). Either buy chocolate mocha mousse or buy chocolate mousse and replace water with coffee.

directions:

Place the cookies (still in their plastic sleeves) inside a 1-gal freezer bag and vigorously smash to smithereens. I used a baseball bat. This should be fun!

Mix cookie smithereens with melted butter, and then, using your fingertips, firmly and evenly press the mixture into the bottom and sides of the pie plate

Pull the ice cream out of the freezer and place in fridge while you make the mousse layer (this will make the ice cream easier to mold)

Layer the ice cream into the bottom of the pie crust, filling it about 3/4 of the way. Use your hands to mold it into the pan. Drizzle a thin layer of the melted fudge on top, and then seal with a layer of the custard or mousse (the fudge and custard will hold the pie together later). Decorate with thin mints and place in freezer.

to serve:

Move pie to refrigerator 30 minutes before serving. Dip bottom of pie pan into 1/2 inch of hot water to loosen. Cut and serve.

(Note: Lisa LOVES this one)

That’s exactly how I feel about getting our authors’ books out to our readers. I want everyone to be able to read what we’ve published, however they want to, on whichever device they own. It’s especially important to me given recent news in the publishing world. Seth Godin just had his book rejected from iBooks because it had links to purchase buttons on Amazon. Smashwords has had to censor certain content due to pressure from PayPal (though it looks like there’s some potential gray area).

John Gilmore, the founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has a great quote, “The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.” By being on as many platforms as possible, Coliloquy content should be accessible to people regardless of place, platform, or device — and we’ll have more exciting announcements in the weeks and months ahead specifically around that. Keep watching this space!

But this Valentine’s Day, I find myself strangely moved to send my first Valentine since grade school…to my co-founder Waynn.

Choosing a co-founder for your start-up is the most important decision you will make. You are basically getting married–making a commitment to each other and a shared ideal. For better, worse. Through thick, thin.

I’ve been married to my real-world husband for 14 amazing years, and we are damn good at it. So when I looked for a co-founder for my “next big thing” I didn’t just look for someone who wanted to build something awesome. I wanted someone who could take a step back and calmly communicate. Someone who could make me laugh and who had the bad taste to actually find ME funny. Someone who took commitment seriously. Someone who I could respect and who would respect me.

Waynn and I have been though all of the ups and downs of an early-stage startup. The ups have been amazing. But none of our downs have been battles or fights. Like the best marriages, they have been honest, straightforward discussions, coming from a place of wanting to be better. Together.

So on this Valentine’s Day, I just want to say that I am utterly grateful for you, Waynn. You are an amazing partner and friend.

And I sincerely hope this post helps your future wife find you.

Or at least gets you laid.

If not, you can listen to this song I wrote for you on songify (shoutout to producer Deb):

Waynn song

Costolo was a highlight, both because he drew so easily on his skills as a stand-up comic and because he came across as straightforward, open, and reasonable while addressing all of the big issues of the day–censorship, SOPA protests, the company’s relationship with Google.

We were also pretty enamored with Remnick, the lone other speaker to take the stage in defense of words. He may come from the other end of the tech spectrum from us, but as dedicated readers of The New Yorker, Lisa and I can attest that the magazine IS as good as ever, and under his inspirational leadership, we are confident it will last.

I was also afraid I was going to have to hold Lisa back from accosting both Stewart and Skipper, but she managed some uncharacteristic restraint. For those of you who don’t know her that well, Lisa loves to bake, decorate cakes, and arrange flowers, but she also watches more sports than most guys. And both of us read just about everything on Grantland (BRILLIANT site).

Where there was no holding back was in the demos. As you’ll see from our NSFW video, Lisa’s reading from Linda Wisdom and Lynda K. Scott’s new personalized erotica series, Great Escapes, brought down the house (and Peter Kafka’s usually impenetrable visage). But she also spoke passionately about what we’re doing and why it’s important for both readers and authors.

Similarly bereft of shyness were Prerna Gupta and Parag Chordia of Khush, the other demo-ing company. We always love meeting other mixed-gender founding teams, and these two were a delight. Check out their demo here! Oh, and their apps, LaDiDa and Songify, ROCK. I’d share Lisa’s song-writing files here, but she might kill me.

A huge thank you to Peter Kafka and the entire AllThingsD team for putting together such a wonderful conference!

Today’s Topic: Roofies and White Girl Rap

Lisa: If you go to a roofie party and someone has sex with you, is it rape? You clearly can’t give consent at the time of sex, but did you give consent by ingesting a roofie at the roofie party?

Waynn: So everyone take a roofie?

Lisa: (double-checks the internet) Yes.

Waynn:  I think it’s consent.

Lisa: Ain’t nothin’ but a roofie par-ty par-ty…Ain’t nothin’ but a roofie…

Waynn: You should not rap.

Lisa: Not even white girl rap, Kreayshawn style?

Waynn: Your version of white girl rap is more Kei$ha than Kreayshawn.

Lisa: So not true! I have swag.

Waynn: No. You have a  startup and a baby, and you live in Palo Alto.

Lisa: Assclown! Look at Beyonce.

Waynn: You are not Beyonce.

Lisa: True, but I bet she can’t rap any better than me. Scenario: You are making a rap record and you have to have Kreayshawn or Beyonce do a  verse. Who do you pick?

Waynn: See, now you are trying to make me seem racist. No matter who I pick, it just doesn’t go over well.

Lisa: You could always pick me.

Waynn: [silence]

Lisa: You wound me, Waynn.

More seriously, the reporter raises a misperception that is pretty common among people who haven’t spoken with us or our authors. Namely, that we advocate “novels by committee” and are cheapening the art form, when our goal is quite the opposite. Our authors retain complete control over what they write and where their stories go. We just give them extra feedback from readers. It’s nothing different from reading fan mail, reviews, message boards or twitter hashtags, except that it is more equitable–every opinion is aggregated, not just the most vociferous ones.

Yes, an author may choose to enhance a character’s story line (like Stephanie Meyers did with Jacob in Twilight) or change an ending (like Charles Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop), but others simply use the feedback to help hone their own storytelling techniques.

And storytelling is the key here–the most natural form of storytelling is practiced by each and every one of us on a daily basis, as we orally share stories with each other. And do we just close our eyes and tell those stories in a monotone? No. We use inflection and gestures to enhance the message, we listen for laughter, sorrow, or other emotions, and we look for visual clues to see how the audience is responding…all so that we can adjust our delivery accordingly.

My point is that a static book format isn’t always the right medium for a story. Do I believe that brilliance can come from an isolated genius? Of course. But more common is the storyteller who refines over time. And the audience who wants to feel connected.

My final note is the irony of her obviously negative view of readers: “No doubt, the Coliloquy’s reader panel would have advised Kafka to make the protagonist a lovely butterfly. or better yet, a winsome pool-boy with a striking physique.” Really? It’s simply offensive.

Why do we read? To feel. To think.

Just because Tawna Fenske makes me laugh does not mean she is not an artist. She just isn’t Kafka. And thank goodness for that! I read an enormous amount of nonfiction, but there are days I just want candy. And I want the good kind. The Tawna kind.

We’ll be debuting additional titles across all types of genres over the next year, everything from scandalously innovative erotica to what Ms. Chamberlain would so haughtily call “high brow” literature. Some of those books have choices. Others play with your expectations about memory, form, and function. And still others…well, surprise is just as good as laughter, no?

But in all cases, each and every one of those stories has been meticulously loved and crafted by our wonderful authors and editors, to whom we owe the deepest gratitude and respect.

It’s encouraging to me that we are starting to seriously experiment with content that is different than linear translations of books to online. With the new platforms, we have the ability to rapidly run experiments with new styles, techniques and resources (like social learning) which will lead to a new understanding of education.

Lisa’s and my vision for Coliloquy has always included a world where our platform of branching narratives could be used to teach children about actions and consequences, with storylines that change and are customized to different learning styles. Customized learning for students is no longer a pipe dream — companies like Khan Academy are leading the way on that front.

And now, the latest announcement from Apple about interactive textbooks fits right into this theme. The iPad is an amazing device that has transformed the relationship between consumers and their content, with an interface that people of all ages have been able to use. Textbooks are a natural next innovation, and companies like Inkling have been leading the way.

“Traditionally, creating electronic interactive books has been really hard.”

While we focus on narrative and adult fiction, all of these efforts around education are coming from the same place–what can we do with a digital platform that was impossible just a few years ago? Apple and Kindle have provided the distribution channel, and now we’re starting to see content providers and authors truly innovate.