In my last piece, I briefly touched what big publishers have long realized: that to manage their rights and royalties accounting efficiently and accurately, they need to employ a dedicated royalties software program. Today I take a general look at what royalty software features are also key for small to mid-size publishers to be...
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The Importance of Royalty Software – For Small and Mid-Size Business
The Importance of Royalty Software – Part I
Technology hasn’t “killed the book,” but it has made the business of books far more complex. The publishing industry is operating in an economy that may or may not be recovering, and simultaneously in a Brave New Technological World; there is both less economic wiggle-room, and an explosion in the number of ways a...
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Daily Digest for September 7, 2010
All the News Affecting Rights, Royalties, Royalty Software, or Rights Management for September 7, 2010: A Four-Part Series on How Publishing Will Adapt, now that “the big stones have been moved” in technology, the short list for the Booker Prize, plus McMillan pushing for lower e-book royalties. Going “Deeper Than Just the Glow of...
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Weekly Recap – September 3, 2010
The Week in News Affecting Rights, Royalties, Royalty Software, or Rights Management for September 2, 2010: Sony steps it’s e-reader game up, while Kindle pulls ahead in web searches for e-readers. And one of the most popular tweets of the week. Sony’s Potential to Change the e-Book World Kindle Leads As eReader Internet Searches...
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Daily Digest for September 2nd, 2010
All the News Affecting Rights, Royalties, Royalty Software, or Rights Management for September 2, 2010: Steve Jobs, in another black turtleneck appearance, announces big book downloads by iTunes users, plus why “print publishing will never die,” and, the value of a book. Apple Users Download 35 Million Books; iTunes Goes Social Why Print Publishing...
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Daily Digest for September 1st, 2010
All the News Affecting Royalties, Royalty Software, or Rights Managment for Wednesday, September 1st: A free webcast tomorrow on e-readers; Borders bears more bad news; and DRM vs. Copyright eReaders Webcast: The New Mass Market? (Roundtable: 9/2/10) Borders Q2 Loss Widens Does This iBook Have DRM (and, Is It Copyrighted?) e-Readers: The New Mass...
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Borders Partnership with Build-A-Bear
Big book retailers have been devoting shelf space to toys and other non-book items for years, but yesterday’s news that Borders will start selling Build-A-Bear toys next month has drawn criticism from literati on the blogs and Twitter like never before. According to Chief Executive Officer Michael Edwards, Most of Borders’ more than 500...
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e-Books: Promo Potential Outweighs Piracy Peril
“When MP3-players became popular in the late 90s the music industry started to panic about a supposed drop in revenues. Likewise, the film industry panicked when computers and dedicated equipment were able to play video files easily on computer screens and television sets. Both claimed that such technologies, and the file-sharing networks that sprung...
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Unpredictability in the Future of Rights and e-Books
Might e-books force a wholesale re-thinking of the contract for books in all shapes and forms? Emily Williams, co-chair of the BISG Rights Subcommittee, wrote last Friday on the uncertainties and issues in the future of e-books and copyright on Digital Book World. From the publishing perspective, she writes: “Publishers are now strenuously making...
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Rethinking Contracts and Copyrights – Free Webcast
Not surprisingly, e-book publishers have been in the vanguard of offering new terms to authors, often as a way of competing against established print houses. In a manifesto on his blog, Richard Nash, the former publisher of print indie Soft Skull, laid out his own version of the change principle: “The publishing industry is...
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Publishers “More Relevant Than Ever” Says Mackenzie
Little, Brown c.e.o. Ursula Mackenzie has said publishers are “more relevant than ever” in the digital era, amid recent criticism of their relevance. Mackenzie was writing on the Guardian’s website in response to author Ray Connolly’s recent article for the paper arguing against the need for publishing houses in the digital revolution. (Though recent...
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College E-Textbook Market to Grow 50% in 2010, New Simba Report Finds
E-textbooks are picking up steam in the college market, growing at an estimated annual growth rate of nearly 49% through 2013, when they will account for more than 11% of textbook sales, according to the newly released “E-Textbooks in Higher Education” report from media industry forecast and analysis firm Simba Information. New print textbooks...
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Google Exec to Keynote Publishing Business Virtual Conference
Mark Nelson , Strategic Partner Manager at Google, will be interviewed live during Publishing Business VIRTUAL Conference & Expo Sept. 16 at 10:15 a.m.-11:15 a.m. ET The interview will focus on “Google Editions,” Google’s forthcoming service that will allow users to buy digital copies of books discovered through Google’s book search, and enable book...
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Shatzkin: e-book Royalties Versus e-book Self-Publishing
Last week we wrote about Mike Shatzkin’s royalties calculations, comparing e-book royalties to those earned on hardcovers, trade paperbacks, and mass-market paperbacks. Shatzkin wrote yesterday on the royalty comparisons between publishing e-books with a publisher, or by one’s self. His piece highlights the choices faced by authors when considering self publishing services such as...
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Cory Doctorow Reports On His DRM Negotiations
Cory Doctorow provided an update on his DRM negotiations on Boing Boing yesterday. Excerpt below, and full text here. “My August Publishers Weekly column reports in on my experiment to see which of the major ebook stores would carry my books without DRM, and with a text disclaimer at the beginning that released readers...
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