Simon and Schuster Inc.

The Justice Department's antitrust suit over eBook price fixing is as deeply befuddling as it is important to the future of publishing.  Reuters A lengthy Wall Street Journal analysis of the Department of Justice price-fixing case against five publishers and Apple features a photo of Picholine, the swanky restaurant (Zagat calls it "one of the best restaurants in town") where, according to the government, the alleged conspiracy took shape. The lawsuit asserts that "meetings took place in private dining rooms of upscale Manhattan restaurants and were used to discuss confidential business and competitive matters, including Amazon's e-book retailing practices.

The legal controversy over Apple's efforts to use the agency model when selling books directly to its consumers offers a good opportunity to examine the benefits and costs of adopting that approach, both for online retailers and their customers. Does the agency model of selling online harm consumers — and society in general — by raising prices for numerous products, not just for e-books? Or might the agency model offer significant, if often overlooked, economic and social benefits over the wholesale model for manufacturers, retailers and the general public?

Indian service providers for typesetting, e-book, copy-editing and other production services are an established fact and part of virtually every major publisher's workflow.

To be sure, the business process outsourcing (BPO) of publishing services is a growth business, forecast to reach $1.2 billion in 2012 (according to a report by research and intelligence organization ValueNotes, "Offshoring in the Publishing Vertical: 2009"), including outsourcing for book, magazine and newspaper publishing—with 60 percent of these revenues being directed to Indian providers.

That said, it appears that we may be on the verge of a new addition to the existing Indian business model—an initiative that the Indian book manufacturing community has named Book City—Vision 2017.

If you build it, they will come. Not just words of wisdom from a Kevin Costner movie anymore, but the experience of libraries across America. They’ve seen a triple-digit jump in the amount of digital lending during the last year due, in part, to the increased use of tablet devices such as the iPad, Kindle, and Nook.

News of the jump came from OverDrive, one of the leading global distributors of eBooks and audiobooks, which powers “virtual branch” sites for libraries and schools.

Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products, today announced plans to once again recognize January as “No Name-Calling Month” in its stores and online at Barnes & Noble.com. Now in its second year, the month-long campaign is aimed at bringing attention to the national problem of name-calling and bullying of all kinds. Barnes & Noble stores across the country will bring awareness to “No Name-Calling Month” by placing “No Name-Calling” signage in various locations, and hosting a national Storytime event and other activities. Barnes & Noble.com will feature exclusive video

NEW YORK — Starting this week and continuing into 2012, virtually all Michael Chabon novels, stories and other writings will become available as ebooks, news the author looks upon with pleasure and resignation. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay,” Chabon has been a published author since 1988, long enough to land on both sides of the legal and financial digital divide. Chabon controls e-rights to such early works as “Wonder Boys” and his acclaimed debut novel “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh” because they came out well before the electronic era and digital editions

$9.99 is often treated as a magic price—the cost of a New York Times bestseller on Kindle back in the good old days, before big-six publishers adopted agency pricing models and ended Amazon’s discounting of their books. However, for a variety of reasons, few readers ever had the chance to buy those $9.99 e-books—in large part because e-readers themselves were so expensive. From yesterday’s Wall Street Journal : When Amazon.com Inc. introduced its first Kindle e-reader back in November 2007, the $9.99 digital best seller was a key selling point. Today, the price of a

After carrying out unannounced inspections at the companies back in March, the European Commission is now starting a formal antitrust investigation in to whether Apple ( NSDQ: AAPL ) and book publishers are limiting e-book competition with their “agency” pricing model. The EC will investigate whether Hachette Livre, Harper Collins, Simon & Schuster ( NYSE: CBS ), Penguin and Macmillan Germany owner Holzbrinck “have, possibly with the help of Apple, engaged in anti-competitive practices affecting the sale of e-books in the European Economic Area (EEA)1, in breach of EU antitrust rules” ( announcement ). “The

Even as more readers switch to the convenience of e-books, publishers are giving old-fashioned print books a makeover. Publishers are putting more thought into books' aesthetics. Many new releases have design elements usually reserved for special occasions deckle edges, colored endpapers, high-quality paper and exquisite jackets that push the creative boundaries of bookmaking. If e-books are about ease and expedience, the publishers reason, then print books need to be about physical beauty and the pleasures of owning, not just reading. When people do beautiful books, theyre noticed more, said Robert S. Miller, the publisher of Workman Publishing. Its like

Try to burn this version of Fahrenheit 451. Publisher Simon & Schuster today releases the first e-book edition of Ray Bradbury's classic 1953 novel set in a future where reading is outlawed and firefighters burn books.