Jun 23 2009
Oh look, a print publisher runs out of money, stiffs its writers, and no one is certain the outcome. Inkwell Publishing Solutions was a book assembler hired by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and others to put textbooks together. Inkwell would hire freelance writers to provide content. Inkwell has owes about 50 freelance writers, editors, page designers, [...]
Jun 21 2009
Diane Pershing’s stance, and one that she is taking on behalf of the RWA, is that digital publishing model of high royalties v. no advances is not a legitimate business model. This post discusses why digital publishing is legitimate and offers insight (I hope) for whom digital publishing might benefit. The digital publishing model. The [...]
Jun 19 2009
In the most recent RWR, a monthly publication put out by the RWA, Diane Pershing’s president’s letter contained a very wordy assessment of RWA’s commitment to its 10,000+ membership which can be condensed into this: digital publishing is not a legitimate business model and those who are in digital publishing are not sufficiently “career-focused”? How [...]
Jun 17 2009
RWA has posted the results of its 2008 survey of readers along with industry busting numbers on the romance readership. In 2008, 74.8 million people read at least one romance. (I wonder if they are counting readers of Danielle Steele and Nicholas Sparks and Emily Giffen and the like since those books are denoted as [...]
Jun 17 2009
Coming on the heels of speculation that Kindle might be considering some kind of epub participation either by offering epubs or opening the Kindle up is the release of source code for the Kindle, Kindle 2, and the Kindle Dx. I think this points toward Kindle opening up its platform to accept other formats (and [...]
Jun 15 2009
One of the greatest challenges facing digital publishing today is the perception gap. That is to say, there is a perceived gap in quality between books published in e form and books published in print by the NY houses. I suffer from the perception gap myself which isn’t helped when I come across books like [...]
Jun 14 2009
Last September I blogged that Literary Fiction should embrace digital publishing because “the psuedo profit sharing that the new arm of HarperCollins is testing: no advances, higher royalties” made sense for the embattled publishing industry. E publishing, with its low overhead, provides a safety net for experimental fiction, the bailiwick of literary fiction. E publishing [...]
Jun 11 2009
According to the book sales monitored by the Association of American Publishers (AAP), domestic sales are down 4.1% for the year but up 3.3% from last April for a total of $494.9 million. Down Adult Hardcover $95.7 million (-11.0%) – YTD decline 16.2% Adult Paperback $114.8 (-0.8%) – YTD decline 25.7% Adult Massmarket $51.0 (-4.0%) [...]
Jun 8 2009
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that while e textbooks are welcome by colleges and universities the hardware devices are not meeting the students’ needs for tables, illustrations, ease of use. The Kindle Dx, an education aimed device, is selling out. According to Teleread.org, there is now a delay in shipping of the Kindle. [...]
May 28 2009
Julie B sent me a link to this article regarding romances. It cites some of the old statistics with Harlequin’s fourth-quarter earnings up 32% but also indicates that romances are still up into the second quarter of 2009. For the week of May 10, romance book sales overall were up nearly 2.4 percent compared with [...]
May 27 2009
Borders sent out a press release updating the world on its improved financial status. It has reduced debt by 44.9% by the end of the first quarter even though sales were down by 12.1%. Read more at Personanodata. The new CEO, Ron Marshall, plans further changes to Borders stores, increasing the children’s section and focusing [...]
May 25 2009
I’ve been thinking about getting new cards for Dear Author. When I go to conferences, people are always asking for my business card and the ones I have, I don’t really love. I read this article about how business cards suck and everyone is spending outrageous amounts of money in attempting to get their card [...]
May 22 2009
see more Lolcats and funny pictures Update: Pam Jaffee, Avon’s Publicist, responded to the AAR interview here. As stated in my article below, I have had a good relationship with Avon’s publicists. Dear Avon Books: I’ve come to understand that you don’t have much of anything good to say about the “online world”. Yesterday Katiebabs [...]
May 17 2009
Amazon announced last week that it was launching AmazonEncore. AmazonEncore plans to bring well received self published books to the mainstream reading audience. It is starting with the book Legacy by Cayla Kluver. Kluver wrote this book two years ago at the age of 14. With her mother’s assistance, Kluver self published the title under [...]
May 7 2009
The good news is that Harlequin is following up its successful FY2008 4th quarter with a FY2009 1st quarter profit. Revenue in the first quarter rose $13.5% and operating income increased 19.1%. Even including the forex effect, both sales and profits are showing positive gains. The gains were in North American Retail and Overseas. (I [...]
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