Sara Nelson

Amazon released its list of the bestselling books of 2012 on Friday morning. The list is a great summary of one of the key themes in book publishing in 2012: Self-published authors and traditional publishers need each other.

DailyLit, the online service that sends readers book excerpts daily via email and RSS feed, announced this week that the service is now 100-percent free. "Starting now, any book, story or series featured on DailyLit is being made available for free," CEO Susan Danziger blogged on the DailyLit Web site.

What’s the most cost-effective way to market to libraries? How do I find and work with a distributor? Does a social media marketing plan make sense for my company? How do I make more money with special sales?

According to a Publishers Weekly (PW) report yesterday, PW has been officially put on the market for sale, along with its affiliated publications, Library Journal and School Library Journal. Earlier this year, PW's editor-in-chief, Sara Nelson, was laid off. She was one of 7 percent of the staff, including several other top editor's, laid off at PW's parent company, Reed Business Information (a Reed Elsevier company), following Reed Elsevier's failed attempt to sell Reed Business Information in its entirety last year.