The Wall Street Journal

Borders Group Inc. has agreed to accept books from HarperStudio—the HarperCollins imprint started by former Hyperion Books publisher Robert S. Miller—on a nonreturnable basis, according to The Wall Street Journal. When Miller, who serves as HarperStudio's president and publisher, joined HarperCollins in the spring to develop the new publishing group, one of the goals of the group was to eliminate the practice of allowing book-sellers to return unsold copies of books.

76,000 The number of copies of “Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska’s Political Establishment Upside Down,” by Kaylene Johnson—the only biography of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin—regional publisher Epicenter Press printed in a few days, due to an overwhelming, nationwide demand in the week following the announcement of her Republican vice-presidential nomination. That same week, Zondervan announced that it would release a biography of Palin in October entitled “Sarah Palin: A New Kind of Leader.” Source: Book Business Extra, Sept. 12, 2008 10,000 Number of copies Barnes & Noble (B&N) originally ordered of Robert Kuttner’s “Obama’s Challenge: America’s Economic Crisis and the Power of

According to one of the better-known accounts in the compendium of humankind’s greatest achievements, it was in the year 105 that a Chinese man named Ts’ai Lun invented paper, mashing up wood from a mulberry tree with fiber from bamboo. Thus was born a technology that would literally change the world, making possible artistic, scientific and religious revolutions, democratizing literacy and learning, and ushering humanity into the modern age. In recent times, paper production has played a role in changing the world in other ways. The book industry alone required 3 million to 4 million tons of paper over just the last three years,

In a May 27, 2005, article called “Put Away the iPod: ‘Harry Potter’ Unlikely as a Download,” The Wall Street Journal reported that the “Harry Potter” novels were not likely to become available for downloading. The primary reason: author J.K. Rowling’s previous experiences with unauthorized digital publication of her novels. In the article, Rowling cautioned readers to distrust any ‘Harry Potter’ e-books offered for download on the Internet. Today, however, it is a different story. The entire “Harry Potter” series became available for download on the iTunes Music Store in fall 2005. Ironically, the reason Rowling, who plans to write the final book in the

LA VERGNE, Tenn. - Ingram Publisher Services Inc., a subsidiary of Ingram Book Group Inc. that specializes in providing distribution services to publishers, and O'Reilly Media Inc., an independent publisher of computer books, today announced they have entered into an exclusive distribution agreement to begin September 2005. Under the new agreement Ingram will be the exclusive distributor of O'Reilly books, handling retail customer service, order-entry and fulfillment. "Our partnership with Ingram allows us to give our current customers better, faster service," said Laura Baldwin, O'Reilly's CFO/COO. "Plus, they offer the services we need to expand our international business, as well as grow our account base in

Special to BookTech by Danny O. Snow For centuries, publishers have wrestled with one simple but crucial question upon which their success often depends: How many copies should we print? On one hand, fundamental economics of printing encourage publishers to produce as many copies as possible to achieve better economies of scale and lower per-unit costs. Meanwhile, the cost of unsold copies can also erode profit margins. The sunny side of POD Print-on-demand (POD) increasingly offers today's publishers a good solution to this central dilemma. By allowing publishers to print exactly enough copies to meet market demands and no more, POD drastically reduces, or

What to consider when shopping for a digital achive system Special to BookTech by Danny O. Snow Today's publishers need effective solutions for securely and efficiently storing the digital assets. Of course, there are many important factors to consider when selecting a digital asset management (DAM) system: cost, ease of use, security, scalability, available features and online capabilities. In addition, a DAM solution's ability to enhance cross-media publishing; provide both in-house and vendor access to the digital assets; and interpreting legacy files can play an important role in a publisher's success. Finally, a publisher must weigh in-house asset management against the out-sourcing alternative.