The New York Times
November 22, 2011
Extra caught up with Gillian Green, editorial director at Ebury, to ask about the finer points of launching Rouge Romance, Ebury's new, digital-first imprint, giving readers books "wherever they want, in whatever format they choose," and what makes a novel "sexier, longer and 100% more romantic."
November 22, 2011
The New York Times has a lengthy article discussing the relative immunity of children’s books to electronic replacement. Even the most ardent e-book fans insist on print for their children, it reports. There are a number of good reasons, including not wanting to expose expensive electronics to juvenile whims (and assorted substances), not wanting the [...]
November 14, 2011
Amazon’s new Kindle Fire, the company’s first tablet computer, starts shipping Tuesday, November 15. Consumer Reorts took a first look at a preview version and found a lot to like.
November 9, 2011
(PRESS RELEASE) Lagardère SCA announced third quarter revenues today, noting “solid activity trends despite a highly uncertain economic environment.” Highlights of the company's financial performance are as follows: At Lagardère: Third-quarter net sales of €1,982m were up 1.3% on a like-for-like basis and down 5.8% on a reported basis (the difference between reported and like-for-like…
November 4, 2011
André Schiffrin, 76, a leading figure in the New York book publishing world, quit Pantheon in 1990 to establish a not-for-profit independent publishing house, The New Press, explaining that economic trends prevented him from publishing serious books.
Schiffrin describes the crisis in Western publishing in his 2011 book, The Business of Books: How the International Conglomerates Took Over Publishing and Changed the Way We Read. In 2010, in Words and Money, he commented on the role of conglomerates in the newspaper and film business.
November 3, 2011
Today, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) announced the launch of the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. With an Amazon Prime membership ($79 annually), Kindle owners can now choose from thousands of books to borrow for free – including over 100 current and former New York Times Bestsellers – as frequently as a book a month, with no due dates.
November 2, 2011
Executives at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt say they do not believe they will sell as many print copies of the new dictionary as they did of previous editions. That is why there is a free companion Web site for the dictionary, at ahdictionary.com. That is also why the dictionary is being made available as an app and for e-readers. (The app is free with the purchase of the print dictionary and $24.99 if bought separately.)
(h/t Teleread)
November 1, 2011
According to Albert Greco of the Institute for Publishing Research (as reported by WSJ.com) sales of print titles will drop from $18 billion in 2008 to $13.9 billion in 2015, not including book clubs, book fairs and catalog mail orders. His projections show that e-book sales should increase to $3.6 billion by 2015 from $78 million in 2008.
October 31, 2011
It seems the leading e-reader — and others — do add weight as they add digital books. A University of California, Berkeley computer science professor says the amount, however is "very small, on the order of an atogram."
A New York Times reader question about "when an e-reader is loaded with thousands of books, does it gain any weight?" resulted in the answer from professor John D. Kubiatowicz.
“In principle, the answer is yes,” he said.
October 24, 2011
HarperCollins Publishers, a division of News Corp., has acquired the rights to the majority of titles published by Newmarket Press, the respected independent publisher of film-related books, including its Shooting Script series and illustrated movie tie-in books.
