Seth Godin’s decision last week to leave traditional publishing behind, has raised several questions, chiefly: Is he really making a radical change? Is this simply another smart marketing play? And hasn’t Godin “quit” traditional publishing before? A round up response and discussion from industry heavyweight was posted this morning by Publishing Perspectives, which gathers some of...
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News that Random House had “won” its showdown with The Wylie Agency, over the inclusion of titles by RH authors in Wylie’s backlist digital publishing imprint Odyssey Editions, spread quickly through publishing circles last week, after joint statement released by Random House and Wylie. The statement said that Random House will now be the...
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More news from the GigaOM summit on “Disintermediation in Publishing” which is sure to have an impact on rights and royalties.  In addition to the paradigm-shifting technology we mentioned earlier, real debate is taking place on complaints from authors about royalty options and pricing policies relating to major retailers. Peter Brantley attended the conference...
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Debate on how technology will impact the role of the literary agent is taking place at the annual GigaOM Pro Bunker Series. Particularly interesting from a rights and royalties perspective is the potential for disintermediation in publishing. “We publish a lot of….dreck. I’m actually really proud of that because it should not be the...
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Nicholas Negroponte’s prediction earlier this month that the physical book will be dead in 5 years set off a global debate, and created an internet meme out of predictions that “The…is Dead.” Of course, print isn’t dead, and probably will never entirely be gone.  However, its cultural centrality has diminished and continues to move...
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Just what makes an e-book “enhanced” is not entirely clear, but what is certain is that it’s a concept publishers are eager to capitalize on.  Generally speaking, enhanced e-books are traditional text-and-image e-books that have been augmented by audio and video, and often include exclusive supplementary material.   In addition to raising new royalties and...
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The Beijing International Book Fair, which runs through September 3rd, is attracting an increasingly global audience, as the Chinese book market continues to boom. Two questions are most relevant this year: What will happen with the e-book market in China (sales of ebooks and digital products hit 80 billion RMB ($11.8 billion) in 2009...
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Mike Shatzkin‘s run the numbers comparing e-book royalties to hardcovers, to trade paperbacks, and to mass-market paperbacks, and how they work out under both the wholesale and the agency models (with the author getting 25% of net and with the author getting 40% of net). By Shatzkin’s admission, this is a “just the facts,...
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In news that will have broad implications in e-book rights, Andrew Wylie and Random House have “resolved their differences,” according to a joint statement from Mr Wylie and Markus Dohle, Random House’s chairman and chief executive. The feud began when the powerful literary agent announced plans to issue 13 titles as e-books exclusively through...
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Publishers Weekly unveiled  PW Select on Monday, “a quarterly supplement announcing self-published titles and reviewing those we believe are most deserving of a critical assessment.” In the announcement, PW President George W. Slowik Jr wrote: “Each quarterly will include a complete announcement issue of all self-published books submitted during that period. The listings will...
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Following yesterday’s news that use of Flat World’s openly-licensed college textbooks will double for the Fall 2010 academic year, today EbookNewser caught up with Flat World CEO/Founder Eric Frank.  Frank weighs in on changes in the textbook industry and changes in how students will use textbooks in the future.  Flat World’s model may be...
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Students at Texas Tech University are learning the fundamentals of business management from Atlas Black.  Atlas is a 20-something, a bit of a slacker – and he’s a character in a comic book. Professor Jeremy Short co-wrote a series of graphic novels, which he’s been using instead of textbooks in his business classes, to...
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Bestelling author Seth Godin announced over the weekend that his book Linchpin is the last one he will publish in the traditional way. In an upcoming Mediabistro interview, Godin says “I’ve decided not to publish any more books in the traditional way….I like the people, but I can’t abide the long wait, the filters,...
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College textbook publisher Flat World announced today that use of it’s openly-licensed college textbooks will double for the Fall 2010 academic year, and publishers are sure to be paying attention. Flat World’s textbooks are published under an open Creative Commons license, as opposed to the industry-standard “all rights reserved” copyright.  Faculty can pick and...
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According to internal merchandising material “leaked” on the blog “i heart cvs” (yes, that exists), CVS stores will be selling a $179 e-reader beginning in early September.  According to engadget, the 7-inch LookBook e-reader will have 512MB of storage space, a full keyboard and access to Kobo’s e-book store. And of course earlier this...
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