Today’s edition is made possible in part by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., providers of provocative and timely titles for general readers, and professional and scholarly books throughout the humanities and social sciences. Visit them at BookExpo America, booth 3758. The family that is book publishing is preparing for another annual reunion – otherwise known [...]
BTB #296: Free E-books Is Gluejar’s Mission
It sounds like a caper in a Wallace and Gromit movie. Liberate the e-books. But that unlikely mission is the work of Gluejar. A technologist, entrepreneur, and writer, Eric Hellman is Gluejar’s president, who became interested in technologies surrounding e-journals and libraries after 10 years at Bell Labs in physics research. “We want to offer [...]
PW’s Week Ahead 05.11.12
Authors’ representatives – otherwise known as literary agents – have done some writing on their own this week. In a missive to the US Department of Justice, the board of the Association of Authors’ Representatives (AAR) conveyed “in the strongest terms possible” its opposition to a proposed settlement with three publishers over alleged e-book price [...]
BTB #295: The Trouble With E-Book Pricing
Consumers are taking to e-books fast – almost as fast as they have taken to the readers and tablets where e-books live in the digital world. A February 2012 report from the Pew Research Center found that one in five US adults had read an e-book in the last year. The latest figures available from [...]
BTB #294: E-Books – You Can’t Write Just One
The price of e-books is on many people’s minds, including the Federal Department of Justice, which recently sued Apple and three leading publishing houses. At least as much as consumers care about getting the lowest price, however, authors and publishers care about getting a fair price for their works. But when you’re the author and [...]
PW’s Week Ahead 05.04.12
The parties returned to Judge Denny Chin’s Manhattan courtroom yesterday for motions in the Google Books Case. The search engine giant sought to remove the Authors Guild as an associational plaintiff, even as the Guild pushed for its own motion to certify the class of authors. And what about the publishers? Well, they were elsewhere, [...]
BTB #293: Can Music Pay?
It’s the age of the one-man band, but the picture looks different from days past. Along with the drum on a strap, and a harmonica on a metal brace, the performer now carries a laptop – and with that and an Internet connection, she or he records and distributes music, designs Web sites, and schedules [...]
PW’s Week Ahead 04.27.12
A major publisher moves to kill DRM (Digital Rights Management). It’s more good news for e-book consumers, but in corners of the publishing industry, fears persist. Will holding on save the business? — or sink it? “Tor Books, the venerable sci-fi imprint of Macmillan has announced they would no longer use Digital Rights Management locks [...]
BTB #292: Rescue Newspapers, Save Democracy
In early April, local businessmen acquired the Philadelphia Inquirer and related media properties for $55 million. Led by Lewis Katz and George E. Norcross III, the investors purchased Philadelphia Media Network (PMN) for a fraction of the $515 million paid in 2006 by a previous local investor group. The sale attracted national attention for its [...]
PW’s Week Ahead 04.20.12
O to be in England, now that April’s there. And in 2012, in London, the scene is not nearly as idyllic as in Browning’s verse: The great metropolis is in the final throes of preparation for Olympic game and royal jubilee festivals. It has not gone without notice, though, that the city was host this [...]
