On October 20th, 2010 we announced we were giving away 100,000 free children’s books to parents in the U.S. military using our kids books online service A Story Before Bed. Between then and March 2nd, 2011 we’ve given away an average of 746 children’s book recordings each day to families with a deployed or deploying [...]

Building our children’s ebook service, A Story Before Bed, has been an educational process to say the least. One of the coolest things about it is the role that accidents play in our modest leaps forward. One of my favorite is the creation of our library of free children’s ebooks read by authors and illustrators. [...]

I’ve been management at various companies, and I’ve certainly been subjected to management at the same companies. I’ve been a victim of this disease and I’m not proud to say that I’ve also been a vector for it. That said, management is the disease in almost every fucked up company. It comes down to management’s [...]

Here’s a game in which you can use your handy Spy Toolkit iPhone app.

New York, NY, January 25, 2011 — Digital Book World announced last night that A Story Before Bed (http://www.astorybeforebed.com) won the first ever Publishing Innovation Award in the Children’s category. Jenny Lam, Co-Creator of A Story Before Bed (and Co-Founder of its parent company Jackson Fish Market) added: “We couldn’t be more pleased to win [...]

As part of my job here at Jackson Fish Market when I’m working on our children’s book service, A Story Before Bed, is to license books for our library from children’s book publishers. (BTW, I recently read an article where Netflix has at least 80 people doing this job for them for movies. ) Getting [...]

Jenny, Walter, and I founded our little company back in late 2006. After some time trying other possibilities, we finally found our first major product when we decided to build A Story Before Bed in late 2008. In November of 2009 we were the first and only service on the internet that let you record [...]

Minimalist Brand Redesigns. They make me want them more… Classy Pringles!

I love being in the software industry. So many things are being reshaped right now and I get to participate in my own small way. Here’s a vision piece from some European newspapers describing the newspaper of the future. News+ concept live from Bonnier from Bonnier on Vimeo. The problem is, there’s really nothing new [...]

Lovely merger of Star Wars characters and typography.

We have a new iPhone app from a little known subdivision of Jackson Fish Market — Acme Toolkit. Acme Toolkit, provider of toolkits for specialty professionals is proud to announce the latest in its line of field tools – Spy Toolkit. Today’s field agent needs a reliable set of tools in a compact package. Hidden [...]

Can I put my deposit down now?

We’re simple software folk here at Jackson Fish Market. We’re not perfect, but we’re trying hard to make nice stuff that people like to use. And when a new platform comes along that people have worked hard on, we’re happy to give it a shot. Luckily, the new Windows Phones from Microsoft are not just [...]

Was it the first tooltip (or screentip as Microsoft called it) that showed up when you hovered over toolbars in Word for Win95? Was it in 1991 with System 7 Baloon Help? Was it before those? In a game maybe? I don’t really know, and please comment if you do so I can update the [...]

Three words. Space. Invader. Couch.

Want to put our your own Dr. Seuss Book? Move fast.

Want.

I’ll be installing this in my bunker soon.

Today we’re on a mission, and we need your help. When we first launched A Story Before Bed, almost a year ago, we knew that we wanted to help parents and grandparents connect with their kids and grandkids through reading. But one of the first thoughts we had once we decided to build A Story [...]

We’re on a mission to connect families through reading, and books number 186 and 187 in our catalog are going to help. Specifically, Elliot’s Fire Truck and Pierre Le Poof! both from Andrea Beck, children’s book author and illustrator. We’d love for you to check them out. Record them and don’t pay unless you’re happy [...]

There are many great things about children. Chief among them (when it comes to doing my job), is that they work for cheap. I’m proud to announce that we’ve shipped a brand new app for the iPhone and iPad – Hippo Hooray Scoop Shoppe – Ice Cream Matching Game for Kids. Since the game was [...]

I recorded this video last friday. I think I was a little punchy (or something). Apologies in advance for my wackiness. That said, the suggestion in the video is real… reading alphabet books daily to your four-year-old helps them recognize phonemes and ultimately helps them to learn to read. See what you think.

This week we’ve got 5 new books… well… they’re not exactly new as they’re from the turn of the century (the last century) – the early 1900′s. We’ve waded through the quaint ones and found some cute books that are still great to read to your kids and grandkids. And they’re priced to move at [...]

Ever gone to an author reading at the local library or children’s bookstore? Now you can see authors and illustrators reading their own creations 24 hours a day on StoryTime in the Reading Room from A Story Before Bed. Details inside.

I certainly hope so… I know I am. This updated book is dark, sparkly, and gahgeous! We’d love for you to check it out. You can get all the details in our fancy new video newsletter embedded below.

Not interested in reading our brilliant prose? How about a video version introducing all our new books. Let us know what you think!

We have some fun announcements today. We took a little break here at A Story Before Bed over the last couple of weeks. It’s been hot here in Seattle and we needed to recharge. But… we haven’t been totally devoid of progress. For some time I’ve been promising to unveil a bunch of new books [...]

I’m one of the lucky few people to have a female co-founder of a tech startup. And I have long known that working with senior women can often be a significantly more valuable experience than the traditional sausage fest. (Yes… I just said “sausage fest”.) It’s not that women are inherently better or worse… it’s [...]

Hey there fans of A Story Before Bed (and I count myself among you … Wow wow wow it is hot. Seriously hot. Taking the kids out last night for frozen yogurt only provided temporary relief. Seattle is very muggy. They say the weekend will bring relief. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. But heat does [...]

Hey everyone. Hope you’ve all had a nice week. The last two notes have rivaled a PhD thesis in terms of length so I’m going to keep it short and sweet for everyone this week. As promised, A-Z at the Earth Museum is no longer free. But, we’re not stingy here at A Story Before [...]