Derek Jeter

The sports-bro solidarity has been achieved: Jeter Publishing, Derek Jeter's publishing partnership with Simon and Schuster, announced that it will publish a book by Rob Gronkowski. It's Good to be The Gronk, which is apparently really what they're calling it, will "take the reader from the locker room to the VIP room," according to a press release.

Via Simon and Schuster:

From his near career-ending injury to his incredible comeback in Superbowl XLIX, Gronk will give readers an intimate look beyond his highly-publicized life. With over 1.8 million followers on social media, Gronk is

Last week, my two favorite things came together – baseball and books. Even more specifically, New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter announced he was partnering with Simon & Schuster to create a literary imprint Jeter Publishing. Those that know me know I have a large baseball card collection with most of it dedicated to Jeter, [...]

The post Derek Jeter’s New “At Bat” Project: Book Publishing appeared first on TeleRead: News and views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics.

Derek Jeter, the New York Yankees' shortstop and captain, who is nearing the final act of a golden athletic career, is ready to talk about his life after baseball. He wants to be a book publisher. On Thursday, he announced that he will start his own publishing division, Jeter Publishing, a partnership with Simon & Schuster. Saying he had thought a lot about his future while recovering from injuries last season, he portrayed the move as a way to explore a project that combines his interests in business and content.

There's a great piece by the Scholarly Kitchen's Joseph Esposito this week that asks, in response to the latest corporate megamerger between Penguin and Random house, "Why did publishers get so big?" His breakdown of the larger forces that led to larger publishers is exquisite. —Brian Howard

Quoth Esposito:

"For many people the rationale for bigness is all-too-evident: greed. But while greed can be a strong motivator, it is not a strategy. To put this another way, why does greed always reach for bigness? What is it about bigness that makes it economically irresistible?"

Adult trade publishers with a “change is good” attitude are finding success in today’s market. From promoting literacy to experimenting with new marketing initiatives, such as social networking sites and author videos, and new distribution formats, such as e-books and digital downloads, industry leaders are now acting upon, not resisting, the significant turn the publishing world has been taking. Data indicates that while monthly sales fluctuate, overall, sales are still up, and many publishers are proactively striving to keep them that way. Last month, The Association of American Publishers (AAP) reported that adult hardbound book sales totaled $2.8 billion in 2007, a 7.8-percent increase

In my last column I said that what the e-book market needed was better infrastructure. Since then one of the biggest pure plays in the infrastructure sector—Reciprocal—closed shop, netLibrary declared bankruptcy, and two of the biggest Digital Rights Management (DRM) providers (Intertrust and ContentGuard) declared, in effect, that they would cease marketing their products. So is that egg on my face? To mix metaphors I shall save face by resorting to yet another two metaphors. The first is the Field of Dreams syndrome: "If you build it, they will come." In infrastructural terms: to play baseball, you need a stadium. One conventional wisdom would maintain