Web Development

Tom Doran, the CEO and founder of Freeload Press, a small Minnesota startup looking to challenge the way the book industry sells textbooks, wants to help college students when it comes to paying for their course texts. By generating revenue from the advertising that will be featured on the Web site and in its textbooks, Freeload is able to offer the books for free download on its Web site or as lower-priced texts with advertising. The company plans to offer 100 free titles this fall. Book Business EXTRA! -- What, in your opinion, has led us to where we’re at now where so much attention

Google showed a renewed push in its project to scan the full text of book collections throughout the world this week as the company announced a new partnership with one of the largest public university systems in the country. The University of California joined with Google in its the Google Book Search Project, to help scan millions of books, the company announced Tuesday. The support of UC and its 100 libraries across 10 campuses is expected to reinvigorate a project that has garnered much controversy since being introduced to the book industry in October 2004 at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Since December 2004, Google has worked

HarperCollins new Digital Media Cafe (harpercollins.iamplify.com) opened for business earlier this week. The new online venture charges for subscription and on-demand audio and video downloads featuring interviews and behind-the-scenes snippets of the publishing houses’ top talents. The distribution platform tools for the venture were created by iAmplify, a two-year-old publisher of digital media, who began working with Harper earlier this year. iAmplify Cofounder Jack Hidary spoke with Book Business EXTRA! about the new venture for offering premium downloads that allow publishers to go ‘beyond the book.’ Hidary said he believes this enterprise demonstrates a more sustainable business model for the book industry.

The most-used computer operating system in the world is revving up to take on the world’s most-used search engine for the right to claim title to the world’s most-used online book search. Microsoft’s game plan is to overtake Google in the book search field—by involving publishers instead of alienating them. The forthcoming release of Microsoft’s Windows Live Book Search—a search program that is scheduled for release later this year—comes on the heels of the controversy surrounding the introduction of Google Book Search, Google’s foray into book search. Google has taken a pounding since it presented its search in October 2004. Several law

“It’s quite a different world for Christian publishers than it was even just a few years ago,” Barbour Publishing President and CEO Tim Martins says. Uhrichsville, Ohio-based Barbour began in 1981 as a small remainder-seller of other publishers’ excess stock, known as Book Bargains, and evolved into a publisher that has shipped more than 100 million books in its 25 years in business. Now, it’s developing supplemental methods of getting its inspirational books to an ever-growing readership by leading the faithful online. One of the biggest challenges Barbour and other Christian publishers are facing is the consolidation of the sales channels—the big-box mentality

Some production managers have estimated that a unit cost of a DVD might run an average of about 60 cents, a CD 26 cents, and a sleeve about 23 cents, obviously with unit costs going up for small print runs and dropping for extremely large print runs. But those savvy in CD/DVD production stress that there are many factors that can cause unit costs to vary significantly. Here are nine considerations to keep in mind as you begin work on your next CD/DVD companion project to help ensure you don’t get burned with unexpected costs or complications: 1. What features will you require the CD

Somewhere between the ages of five and 11, kids stop reading. Well, maybe not all of them, but a recent study spearheaded by Scholastic Inc. shows that readership drops off as children age. The results show that 40 percent of kids between the ages of five and eight read for fun every day. Only 29 percent of nine- to 11-year-olds read as frequently, and that number declines sharply through age 17. Running Press Book Publishers thinks it knows why—and how to reverse this troublesome trend. Running Press, a Philadelphia-based imprint of The Perseus Books Group, will release a new young adult (YA) title, “Cathy’s

Scholastic Press is betting there’s at least a few million readers out there who didn’t bring home the magic of J.K. Rowling’s famous boy wizard last summer. The paperback version of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” the sixth installment of the series, hit book shelves on Tuesday, almost exactly a year after it caused mass-media attention with its midnight release last July. Scholastic, the U.S. publisher of the series, said an initial run of two million copies of the book went on sale on the paperback’s first day of release. This time around, the marketing of the 672-pager will involve Scholastic presenting five episodes

Embracing the promise of a bright digital future, the world’s second largest publisher of science, technology and medical titles recently introduced a new program allowing for unlimited electronic access to thousands of its titles. In June, Springer Science+Business Media announced the launch of its eBook Collection program -- an online collection of more than 10,000 -- during the American Library Association convention in New Orleans. According to Ray Colon, the global manager of Springer’s eBooks, the daunting task to digitize every title Springer publishes each year, as well as a substantial back catalog of thousands of titles, began in January 2005. “The position was taken at the

In the two months since launching the first female-focused mobile phone entertainment application, Harlequin Enterprises Ltd., the Toronto-based publisher best-known for its romance and women’s fiction, says it’s seeing success with its first foray into wireless content. Partnering up with Vocel, a San Diego-based publisher of applications for mobile phones and other wireless devices, Harlequin began offering its mass-market stories to download at the end of April. So far, subscribers have paid $2.49 a month to receive a serialized chapter-a-day of three new stories delivered to their phones or PDAs. “We are very excited about the initial response to Harlequin On The Go,” says