App Development

HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide, one of the five largest book publishers in the world and a subsidiary of News Corp., is strategically focused on a digital evolution that will shape the company’s goals and mission in the future. The foundation of this evolution can be traced back 10 years to when Jane Friedman was hired as the company’s president and CEO. According to Friedman, in the past 10 years HarperCollins has increased profits by more than 1,000 percent and its total revenue went from $600 million to $1.3 billion in 2006. The company publishes an average of 4,300 titles globally per year, with 3,100 employees

Freeload Press, a Minnesota-based publisher and distributor, made headlines last year upon publishing college textbooks featuring advertising for everything from study guides to credit card companies. The company offers these books to students at significantly reduced prices in print or PDF format, and many for free download on its Web site. The goal is to offset the constantly increasing price of required course-reading materials for college students. Freeload now has almost 250 student versions available for download. An academic panel helps with ad placement in the PDF e-textbooks, and the “StudyBreak Ads” are placed in natural breaks in the printed books. Freeload Press Founder

O’Reilly Media, Inc. and CMP Technology, the co-producers of the annual Web 2.0 Summit and Expo, recently announced a new conference and trade-show that is aimed at bringing together top leaders and technologists who are building and driving the European Web economy. The Web 2.0 Expo Berlin is scheduled for Nov. 6–8, 2007, and will take place at the Fairground Berlin, Germany. “Web 2.0 Expo is a global phenomenon. Network effects don’t have national boundaries. But the collective intelligence harvested by the most interesting and innovative Web 2.0 applications often has a local flavor,” said Tim O’Reilly, founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media. “We’re

When it comes to incorporating multimedia—such as blogs, webcasts, e-newsletters, social networking, video, among others—into the business model, Christian publisher Baker Publishing Group is well ahead of the curve. Book Business Extra spoke with two executives from Baker’s different divisions: Jim Hart, the Internet marketing manager at Baker’s Bethany House Publishers, and Twila Bennett, the senior director of marketing at its Revell, Baker Books and Chosen divisions. In this exclusive interview, Hart and Bennett share their insights behind the company’s innovative marketing tactics. EXTRA: From a marketing and sales perspective, describe some of the innovative ways you are using blogs to increase your

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, an independent, London-based publishing house known for literary novels, children’s and reference book publishing, has collaborated with LibreDigital, a division of NewsStand Inc., on the new Bloomsbury ‘Look Inside’ online service. The service reportedly allows readers to search and preview the company’s book content on the Internet in a format that replicates the look of a printed book. Bloomsbury is currently digitizing a number of its books for the service, which will be utilized on a number of Bloomsbury divisions’ Web sites, including Bloomsbury USA, Walker & Company, A&C Black and Berlin Verlag. The new service will be available to booksellers

The book industry is writing a new chapter, as Moka LLC, a “personal mobile knowledge assistant provider,” announces Moka mBooks—which delivers a selection of writings from best-selling books directly to cell phones or e-mail via Short Message Service (SMS) text-message and e-mail technology. SMS is available on most digital mobile phones and a steadily increasing range of other devices (including Pocket PC, desktop computers and some fixed phones) that permit the sending of short text messages between these devices. It is now offering text from 76 introductory titles from authors including Sylvia Browne, Dan Millman, and Wayne Dyer. “We are proud to be bringing

Dwight Baker, president of Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Baker Publishing Group—the third-largest publisher in the Evangelical Christian publishing market—arrived in his position from a different starting point than most publishing company presidents, and he’s using that fresh perspective to put his own personal spin on religious publishing. His approach seems to be working. The company’s annual sales in 2006 surpassed $50 million, four of its publishing divisions saw double-digit growth, and it has a current New York Times Best Seller on the market with 1.4 million copies sold. The family business was founded in 1939 by Dwight’s grandfather, Herman Baker. When Dwight was a teenager, he

More than 1,000 publishing industry professionals converged on New York’s Marriott Marquis, March 5-7, braving a windy Times Square to attend the 2007 Book Business Conference and Expo. The future of print was a primary theme throughout both the exhibit hall, which housed approximately 100 industry suppliers and services, and the conference program, which was packed with more than two dozen sessions, roundtables and panel discussions relevant to book publishers looking for tools to manage their businesses in an ever-changing industry. “The conference hit on so many of the most significant issues facing book publishers that attendees and speakers alike were truly energized by

Springer Science + Business Media does not view Google Book Search as a detriment to its business, but rather as a valuable marketing tool for its popular science, technology and medical (STM) titles. Paul Manning, vice president of book publishing for Springer, attributes much of the recent growth of the company’s back catalog of older titles to its participation with the controversial program. With more than 30,000 titles available in Google Book Search, the publisher saw more than 1 million views in a one-month period, and 20 percent of its “buy this book” clicks on the search were for titles older than 10 years

Technology is fundamentally transforming publishing. From generating ideas to packaging information to delivering products and beyond, everything is changing. Tim O’Reilly, the founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media, the renowned Silicon Valley-based computer/technology publisher, believes that many publishers are woefully unprepared. His company, one of the leading computer-book publishing companies in the world, is at the forefront of the technologies that have directly shaped publishing of the past, present and future. When I spoke with O’Reilly, he was getting ready to board a plane to New York City to keynote Google’s “Unbound” conference on Jan. 18. The conference was billed as “a day