Time Inc.
One of the anticipated major trends of 2013, at least according to the companies showcasing their platforms at last January's Digital Book World event, was supposed to be online retail stores branded specifically to publishers and authors, essentially letting publishers cut out the retailer altogether when it can to ebooks, audiobooks, and other downloadable content. The move was targeted specifically to bring customers to the publishers' websites to make their purchases, instead of relying on retailers like Amazon and Barnes and Noble, costing the rights' holders a percentage of their sales.
Having (somewhat, mostly) recovered from our fabulous and content-packed Publishing Business Conference a few weeks ago, I’m preparing to hit the road again to attend a few other shows.
It is hard to avoid writers in Reykjavik. There is a phrase in Icelandic, "ad ganga med bok I maganum", everyone gives birth to a book. Literally, everyone "has a book in their stomach". One in 10 Icelanders will publish one.
"Does it get rather competitive?" I ask the young novelist, Kristin Eirikskdottir. "Yes. Especially as I live with my mother and partner, who are also full-time writers. But we try to publish in alternate years so we do not compete too much."
Book Business and Publishing Executive magazines have announced the winners of the 2013 Publishing Innovator of the Year Awards. Active Interest Media, Sourcebooks, and the American Physical Society have been selected as this year's winners. This award recognizes publishing companies who have demonstrated significant innovation in the past year. A winner is chosen from each of the following three categories: book, magazine, and scientific, technical & medical (STM) publishers.
The shortlist for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction, the most prestigious literary award in Britain, was announced on Tuesday morning. The six finalists are: "We Need New Names," by NoViolet Bulawayo (Little, Brown/Chatto); "The Luminaries," by Eleanor Catton (Little, Brown/Granta); "Harvest," by Jim Crace (Nan A. Talese/Picador); "The Lowland," by Jhumpa Lahiri (Knopf/Bloomsbury); "A Tale for the Time Being," by Ruth Ozeki (Viking/Canongate); "The Testament of Mary," by Colm Toibin (Scribner/Penguin)
Is Google's book scanning practice "transformative"? Google argues that it is, the Authors Guild argues that it isn't, This could be an important part of determining whether Google scanning all those books in violation of copyright could be considered a "fair use." It follows on the heels of the appeals court decision back in July requiring that the circuit court rule on whether Google Book Search constituted fair use before deciding if the suit warranted class action status.
We are excited to announce that our sister publication, Printing Impressions has announced the winners of this year's Gold Ink Awards. Awards are broken down into five topics, Commercial Printing, Books, Magazines, Catalogs, Digital Printing, and Packaging, with nearly 50 award categories. A variety of content creators participate in the competition, from designers to printers to advertising agencies, competing for Gold, Silver, and Bronze Ink Awards.
On July 31, HarperCollins Christian Publishing (HCCP) turns one year old. According to Ted Olsen of Christianity Today, a leading voice of the evangelical movement, HCCP controls 50 percent of the Christian publishing market, making it by far the largest player in the segment. Led by President and CEO Mark Schoenwald (above), the first year of HCCP has been a "mission" of sorts, one of uniting the two similar but distinct missionary directives of its constituent parts, Zondervan and Thomas Nelson. As Schoenwald and his team have transformed the organization, their mantra has been "One + One is greater than Two."
Today, Amazon Publishing announced that it has secured a new Kindle Worlds license from RosettaBooks for the books of Kurt Vonnegut. Writers will soon be able to create and sell stories inspired by the iconic books of Kurt Vonnegut with Kindle Worlds' self-service submission platform. The submission platform for works under this license is expected to open in August. Kindle Worlds is the first commercial publishing platform that enables any writer to write stories based on a range of original works and characters and earn royalties for doing so.
The first release by Infamous Books, on July 16, 2013, is the novella H.N.I.C. by Prodigy, a story of loyalty, vengeance, and greed.