John

The second installment of Veronica Roth's dystopian trilogy, The Divergent Series: Insurgent, grabbed $52.3 million in its opening weekend at the U.S. box office, just shy of Divergent's $54.6 million debut last year. Clocking $47 million worldwide, Insurgent brings the teen action franchise's total earnings to a plump $388 million so far, with two movies still to come.

Roth, who earned an estimated $17 million last year selling some 7 million books, is but one of many ink spillers whose literary successes have translated into box office hits. Nearly a quarter of the 200 top-grossing films worldwide tallied by Box Office Mojo have been directly adapted from books

Maya Angelou, who died Wednesday at the age of 86, was known for many things throughout her life: her wisdom, her acting, her indefatigable civil rights activism. But more than anything else, Angelou was famous for her writing. Both a prolific poet and memorist, Angelou penned more than two dozens books and collections throughout her life (including two cookbooks).

Yesterday, the folks at 1DollarScan announced a program that makes their nifty, if somewhat controversial, service a little bit niftier. The San Jose, Calif., company scans customers' print books and converts them into ebooks—essentially giving John and Jane Q. Bookworm access to the same services big publishers outsource offshore when they convert their backlist titles.

Through a partnership with Evernote—the early favorite for best cloud app ever—customers who have their print books converted to ebooks through 1DollarScan can access those books through their Evernote interface. (Sign-up for the service started Thursday.)

Dear Mr. Read,

I am submitting by way of this letter two concerns that I hope will be taken into account concerning the DoJ’s complaint against Apple and five publishers, as well as the settlement agreements negotiated and now being considered by the Court.

One concern is the danger of introducing an enormous imbalance to the publishing business, which will ultimately hurt all authors and readers, through the Government’s apparent rejection of the idea of uniform pricing of the sale of individual ebooks across all Internet retail sites.

With a resume filled with shining examples of how to successfully combine traditional media with digital savvy-- from helping to launch Disney Interactive (now Buena Vista Games) to most recently serving as a media and entertainment expert for L.E.K. Consulting--Brian Napack seemed like a natural fit to help steer Holtzbrinck Publishers into the digital era. After month in his new role as president of the company, Napack, 44, spoke with Book Business to discuss what he has in store for the publishing giant during his tenure. Book Business: You have a long history working with both digital and traditional formats. How do you see those

Historically, an unpublished fiction author packages his manuscript in a cardboard box, mails it to one or more book publishers, and waits (and waits and waits) anxiously for a reply. The response is typically months away. Publishers can take nine to 12 months before they finish the process of reviewing a manuscript, giving copies to the poor saps who read the slush pile submissions, and usually sending a polite rejection letter. That's all done with paper, even now. But a few forward-thinking publishers are starting to modernize that process, visualizing the electronic slush pile as the tip of the electronic workflow. Science fiction publisher Baen Books, Bronx,