BTB #326: The New Frontier of Bookselling

Oct 28, 2012 | Events

At the Keystone Resort in the Colorado Rockies (elevation: 9300 feet), PubWest – the Publishers Association of the West –held its annual conference this weekend. In his opening keynote, Oren Teicher, CEO of American Booksellers Association, called for a closer...

The Week Ahead 10.26.12

Oct 26, 2012 | News

The countdown begins: Confirmation from Pearson that it is talking to Random House about a merger with Penguin, its trade book publishing division, could see the Big Six drop a notch. “This would be massive stroke of consolidation for an industry that has been...

BTB #325: Copyright-Friendly Textbooks

Oct 22, 2012 | Copyright, News

Copyright frequently has a way of outpacing technology. The two forces of innovation all too rarely intersect, at least for many authors and publishers. But a month-old startup with ambitions to revolutionize textbook publishing has made copyright permissions an...

The Week Ahead 10.19.12

Oct 19, 2012 | News

Like the book business itself, the Frankfurt Book Fair is undergoing a metamorphosis. Yet while publishers continue their own transformations, the Fair organizers have already emerged from a chrysalis with a new kind of show. “The Frankfurt Book Fair has succeeded in...

BTB #324: A New Chief for Teleread

Oct 14, 2012 | News

A venerable blog site covering all aspects of digital publishing, Teleread posts on a host of topics from e-readers and other physical devices to innovative virtual libraries. A recent item documented the curious repercussions of Amazon’s return policy – for e-books....

The Week Ahead 10.12.12

Oct 12, 2012 | News

Even as the publishing industry converges in Frankfurt, Germany, for the world’s largest annual book fair, the news keeps breaking elsewhere. This week, in Stockholm, the Nobel committee awarded the Prize in Literature to Mo Yan of China. And in a New York courtroom,...

BTB #323: Books Get A Showcase From Ganxy

Oct 9, 2012 | News

Billed as the world’s biggest book and media trade exposition, Frankfurt Book Fair 2012 opens tomorrow, Wednesday, October 10. As much as the book business is now a technology business, so the Frankfurt Book Fair is also a technology fair. Numerous start-ups are on...

BTB #322: “Open Access,” The Book

Oct 7, 2012 | Podcasts

In scholarly publishing, the movement toward “Open Access” – essentially, making it possible to read and re-use published research without cost or permission – is often taken as a challenge to copyright. But according to OA evangelist Peter Suber, author of Open...

The Week Ahead: 10.05.12

Oct 5, 2012 | News

Trade book publisher Penguin sets to thaw out relations with libraries, but the move on e-book sales is seen as cold comfort by some. “The program is still very restrictive,” explains Andrew Alabanese, Publishers Weekly features editor. “For one, it windows new books...