digital publishing

Thursday News and Deals:  Crime fiction overtakes romance

Thursday News and Deals: Crime fiction overtakes romance

In the UK, romance checkouts at the library are being overtaken by crime fiction titles.  Does that mean that the interest in romance books is declining? Melville House wonders if, instead, readers are going digital. But while this story is being billed as romance vs. crime fiction, it seems like there could be a digital(…)

Friday News & Deals: Apple Tries to Take Over Educational Publishing & Grand Central Launches a Romance Imprint

Friday News & Deals: Apple Tries to Take Over Educational Publishing & Grand Central Launches a Romance Imprint

Apple made it’s education announcement yesterday introducing iBooks 2 which allows you to view books made with iBooks Author. iBooks Author has been described as “Garage Band” for books.  Essentially it is a purportedly easy to use tool to create interactive books rich with multimedia such as audio, video, and animations that will be well(…)

2012 Publishing Predictions

2012 Publishing Predictions

The following are my bold and not so bold predictions for publishing in 2012.  My boldest prediction will be that Amazon will buy Goodreads in 2012.  The most unlikely to happen prediction is Number 10.    What are your predictions for 2012? 1.  More authors will self publish than in 2011.  I suspect that nearly(…)

Tuesday Midday Links: News and Deals

Tuesday Midday Links: News and Deals

I’m combining the posts for the news and the deals in one. The deals are at the end. First up is the news that Dan Lubart has been hired by HarperCollins as SVP of Sales Analytics according to Publishers Marketplace. I find this fascinating because Lubart’s firm, Iobyte, has been analyzing price data and list(…)

Publishers, It’s Your Move

I’m concerned that publishers have a deep disconnect with readers.  This shouldn’t be a surprise given that readers aren’t the customer of publishers, but recent events really highlight this.  I have wavered on posting this article because on the one hand, do I really care what happens to publishers?  Won’t I be able to find(…)

Aspen Mountain Press Owner Accused of Using Royalties For Personal Use

Aspen Mountain Press Owner Accused of Using Royalties For Personal Use

This story broke late last week.  Unfortunately, there have been low level rumors about Aspen Mountain Press for a few months but no concrete details.  One of the principals broke her silence and admitted that AMP is a mess. What we discovered when we took over was a nightmare: Hundreds of emails in all the(…)

Wednesday Midday Links: Kindle Lending Launches

Wednesday Midday Links: Kindle Lending Launches

I’m reposting these deals in case someone missed them yesterday. Halfway to the Grave with Bonus Material: A Night Huntress Novel for $1.99 * Amazon | nook | Kobo Cassie Palmer Series: Touch the Dark, Claimed by Shadow, Embrace the Night and Curse the Dawn in one bundle by Karen Chance for $7.51 – Amazon |(…)

A Publishing Seal of Approval, a step toward standarization

A Publishing Seal of Approval, a step toward standarization

A couple of days ago, I received an email with a press release announcing a joint venture of sorts to bring a Publishing Seal of Approval to digital books.   The seal will be called QED and it is owned by Digital Book World, a division of F&W Media.  Barnes & Noble, Sony, and Kobo(…)

Thursday Midday Links: Michael Hart of Project Gutenberg Has Passed Away

Thursday Midday Links: Michael Hart of Project Gutenberg Has Passed Away

Michael Hart of Project Gutenberg has passed away. I don’t think that Hart’s contribution to learning can ever be overestimated. He pioneered digital publishing and brought over a hundred thousand of out of print, public domain works to the reading public regardless of learning ability, economic status, or, in many cases, geographic location. From Wikipedia:(…)

The Things I Learned from RWA 2011

Here is my list of things I learned from RWA 2011: Harlequin and Sourcebooks are really interested in what the reader has to say in all areas of the publishing process from the cover, titles, and content to how the stories are sold.  They use their blogs, facebook and twitter accounts, and customer service emails(…)

Interview with Bella Andre, Self Publishing Success

Interview with Bella Andre, Self Publishing Success

In January 15, 2011, Bella Andre (http://www.bellaandre.com/) launched a new title under the name Lucy Kevin. Lucy Kevin had no cross pollination with Bella Andre name and was unknown before the release. “Falling Fast” shot up to #4 on the BN Bestseller list and Andre sold 25,000 copies of the title in one month. Her(…)

Harlequin’s Response to Royalty Concerns & Contract Issues

I asked Harlequin about a couple of things regarding the new royalty rate as well as whether Bob Mayer’s claims that Harlequin was inserting a non compete clause in its new contracts to prevent authors from self publishing. Here is their response (from Donna Hayes, CEO of Harlequin) Concern: These new rates aren’t actually better(…)

Publishing News from RWA: Berkley & NAL to Acquire for Digital Publishing

Berkley and NAL are currently looking to acquire works that are 55,000 words of original fiction to be published digitally. These works will be published in print on a case by case basis either in a collection or individually later at some undetermined time. Shorter works are considered to be part of their existing “especial”(…)

Saturday Midday Links: Harlequin Raises Its Digital Royalty Rate, Kind Of

Saturday Midday Links: Harlequin Raises Its Digital Royalty Rate, Kind Of

Tor Books is launching an “Author Voices” digital initiative.  Starting with RWA, Tor will be releasing free content exclusively for convention goers via a QR Code at the Tor booth and then after to the general public (for free) as an ebook download at most etailers. Amazon has a link up already.  This free content(…)

Tueday Midday Links: Go the F to Sleep

Tueday Midday Links: Go the F to Sleep

I received Go the F to Sleep in PDF form in two different email boxes. One in my Dear Author account and one emailed to me by a personal, non book friend. I knew when it had hit my personal inbox, that Go the F to Sleep had hit piracy levels that I hadn’t seen(…)