Amazon.com

With the advent of electronic ink, or e-ink, the Sony Reader, the Amazon Kindle and the .epub formatting protocols, the era of the e-book in the United States may be on its way. If you are a publisher or book producer, sooner or later you will be delivering electronic versions of all of your titles for distribution through a burgeoning network of electronic channels—if you’re not already doing so. It may be tomorrow, it may be next year or possibly later, but I guarantee the need to do so will be thrust upon you by the marketplace. While it is true that complex

Amazon.com has reached an agreement to acquire AbeBooks, an online marketplace for used, rare and out-of-print books. The Victoria, British Columbia-based AbeBooks will continue to function as a stand-alone operation and maintain its Web sites. “As a leader in rare and hard-to-find books, AbeBooks brings added breadth and expanded selection to our customers worldwide,” says Russell Grandinetti, vice president of books for Amazon.com. “AbeBooks provides a wide range of services to both sellers and customers, and we look forward to working with them to further grow their business. We’re excited to present all of our customers with the widest selection of books available

Amazon.com Inc. announced that 11 Christian publishers will make a majority of their catalogs of books available for use on the Kindle, Amazon’s e-reader. Augsburg Fortress, Crossway Books & Bibles, David C. Cook, Gospel Light, Group Publishing, NavPress, Strang Communications, Thomas Nelson, Tyndale House Publishers, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. and Zondervan have committed to making many of their titles available to Kindle users by the end of the year. “Of the 135,000 books available on Amazon.com as a physical book and on the Kindle, Kindle books already account for over 12 percent of units sold,” says Ian Freed, vice president of Amazon Kindle.

In case you missed it, the editor-in-chief of Tech Crunch Network’s Crunch Gear blog (www.CrunchGear.com), John Biggs, posted last week that new Amazon Kindle versions are soon to be released. The rumor circulates just as competition is about to heat up in the e-reader market. Kindling the Buzz According to Biggs: “An insider let slip that two new Amazon Kindle models will hit stores this holiday season, with the first coming as early as October. The first is an updated version with the same-sized screen, a smaller form factor and an improved interface. The source told us that Amazon has ‘skipped three or

Macon, Ga.-based Samhain Publishing has found its niche in the world of book publishing, despite the fact that most of its titles aren’t resting on bookstore shelves. The e-book-minded publisher has only tread lightly in the world of traditional print publishing since it first opened up shop nearly three years ago. While print versions of the company’s line of popular romance and erotica fiction are now more commonplace, Owner and Publisher Christina M. Brashear says these traditional books haven’t changed the main focus of providing electronic versions of Samhain’s titles. The publisher has achieved such success selling e-books to loyal readers, according to

Observed from 30,000 feet, the modern system for delivering manufactured goods appears little changed from what it was 30, 40, 50 years ago—trucks roll, trains rumble, ships ply the harbors and canals. Only a closer view reveals the logistical revolution made possible by rolling stock, just-in-time ordering and outsourced production. Similarly, the average consumer picking up the latest best-seller at their local bookstore is unaware of how book distribution models are changing. While the book they hold in their hands may adhere to the old “print-and-deliver” model, for instance, the one next to it may have been “deliver and print,” as in large distributors

I recently attended the Book Industry Study Group’s Making Information Pay event (more coverage on pages 7 and 32), where Michael Cader, founder of Publishers Marketplace and Publishers Lunch, offered publishers simple, yet pertinent advice on engaging their audiences: “Leverage the damn book.” One example he gave: His son read a book from the “Alex Rider” series, so Cader went to the store to buy the series’ next book. To illustrate the point he was going to make, he projected a slide featuring the cover of every book in the series. There was nothing that told consumers which book to read next. The

Missed Part I of This Series? You can find Part I of this two-part series here. Taking the time to step back and evaluate your company’s publishing software can be challenging enough in the midst of the daily grind, but once you become aware that real problems exist, the bigger challenge can be figuring out how to successfully address them. Part I of this article explored “the decision phase”—or, how to recognize the need for a new system and the triggers that alert you to that situation. In this second installment, you will learn ways to analyze, select and determine the success factors

BookLocker.com, a print-on-demand publisher located in Bangor, Maine, is suing Amazon.com over its decision to use one on-demand printer—its BookSurge subsidiary—exclusively for transactions sold and shipped from Amazon, the Associated Press reported earlier this week. The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, seeks an injunction preventing Amazon from implementing its new policy, as well as monetary damages and legal fees, according to the report. A majority of BookLocker.com’s sales are through Amazon. The company stands to lose out on those sales if Amazon follows through with its threat to stop selling BookLocker’s books because it uses a competing on-demand printer, said BookLocker’s lawyer. “It’s

Who is God? What is worth fighting or dying for? Can different religions coexist? These were just a few of the questions that French filmmakers Jules and Gédéon Naudet set out to answer in meeting with some of the world’s most revered spiritual leaders for their television documentary “In God’s Name,” which aired on CBS in December 2007. The Naudets garnered worldwide recognition in 2002 for their documentary “9/11”—recipient of that year’s Emmy for Best Documentary and a result of their own experiences in Lower Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001. In the several years that followed Sept. 11., the Naudets began to question