The New York Times

This week's book industry headlines were peppered with words such as "layoffs," "reorganization" and "cuts" as publishers responded en masse to the effects of the slumping economy. Among the announcements made this week:

Two events occurred recently that some have called the biggest news to hit the industry in decades. First was the announcement of the settlement between Google, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and the Authors Guild, regarding Google’s controversial Book Search tool. The settlement allows Google to make millions of books available for consumers to read or buy through Google Book Search; but the big news is that Google will provide compensation to publishers and authors for their works. The settlement also established a Books Rights Registry (supported by the $125 million settlement paid by Google), which will monitor such compensation as well as work to resolve any additional disputes.

From The New York Times, Nov. 24, 2008Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the publisher of authors including Philip Roth, Jonathan Safran Foer, Günter Grass and J. R. R. Tolkien, has temporarily suspended acquisitions of new manuscripts, a company spokesman said Monday.To view complete article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/books/25publish.html?_r=1

Children are pulled in many directions today; at least, their attention is. They are occupied by MP3 players, gaming systems, computers, cell phones, handheld electronic games and other digital technologies. And yes, children still play old-fashioned board games. They also attend school, compete in team sports, and participate in community and extracurricular activities. With all of these outlets occupying children’s time, how are books faring? With an estimated 40,000 to 60,000 new children’s titles released each year, children’s book publishers are concerned with how their books can compete for young readers’ attention with the thousands of titles already in the market, according to Ron

A “slow, but steady decline” is how Rhonda Herman, executive vice president at reference publisher McFarland & Co. Inc., characterizes the market for reference books. “We are cautious about sales and will feel lucky if sales remain flat.” The reality of an economic downturn is starting to sink in—McFarland’s volume is flat, Herman says, “but actual income is down 2 percent. The reason for this is that we are experiencing higher than normal overstock returns, which is not surprising in this market.” Both direct and indirect costs are hitting the bottom line at the Jefferson, N.C.-based publisher. Higher fuel costs are forcing up the

If you look at “Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography” as an equation—say, America’s most controversial A-lister + one of the world’s most titillating celebrity biographers + a secretive, litigious religion (+ as a bonus, a Writers Guild strike that has much of the entertainment biz on its heels)—you might guess that a publisher needs simply to sit back and let the money roll in. But that’s just never the case, is it? Yes, the book’s publisher, St. Martin’s Press, is reveling in the eye of what we’ll call a perfect storm of self-perpetuating buzz with the Andrew Morton-penned celeb-bio. Yes, prelaunch reports

Marji Ross can find a winner. As president and publisher of Regnery Publishing, a publisher of politically conservative titles, she has developed a formula for what will sell. According to Ross, the company regularly sees a higher-than-average majority of its titles become best-sellers, and last year, Regnery landed four of its books on The New York Times Best-Seller List. Ross will join other publishing executives for the session “Today’s Book Launch: Surefire Strategies for Success” at the Publishing Business Conference and Expo, March 10-12, in New York City (www.PublishingBusiness.com). At the session, she will share the multimedia marketing strategies that have helped make

Social media is one of the tools book publishers need to have in their Web 2.0 arsenal. Web sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Gather not only draw millions of visitors, they also provide those visitors with a platform to converse and connect around shared interests and passions. On Gather (www.Gather.com), which President and COO Carl Rosendorf describes as “MySpace for grown-ups,” “Books” is one of 11 “essential” channels that visitors can navigate to find content and conversation of interest. Gather’s “Books” group boasts more than 45,000 members, who read, contribute and/or comment on original content such as book reviews, articles and

When the “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!” series decided to go global with its newest edition, “The Remarkable … Revealed,” the company took a chance by tweaking the typical foreign publishing model. Rather than licensing full publishing rights, as many publishers do, Ripley chose to handle printing and work directly with foreign distributors. “We’re finding that, with licensing, [foreign publishers] don’t [always] have the commitment we do,” says Norm Deska, executive vice president of intellectual property, Ripley Entertainment. “We’re looking to better establish our brand with a high-quality annual book, and the only way to do that was to do it ourselves.” Ripley, whose

Starting with this Sunday’s edition, readers of The New York Times will be introduced to a redesigned Book Review section, reported Crain’s New York Business. As part of the redesign, the Book Review will split its 15-title paperback fiction best-seller list into two separate lists––one for mass-market titles and one for larger, more expensive trade paperbacks––each featuring 20 titles. Both the hardcover and paperback lists in the How-to, Advice and Miscellaneous categories also will expand, from five to 10 titles each. Non-fiction paperbacks will continue to be ranked on one list. With the expansions, the Book Review now will list a total of 110 best-seller