Simon & Schuster

Wednesday Links Round Up: S&S Layoffs

Confirmation of the layoffs of three Simon & Schuster editors has been made. (We had some concerns about layoffs on Monday). News of the Star Trek editor had leaked out last week with a suggestion that there were others in the offing. Yesterday publisher Louise Burke sent an email notice that Maggie Crawford along with(…)

Monday Midday Links: It Is All Gloom and Doom (today at least)

Disney bought Marvel Comics for $4 billion. Disney will now own the rights to over 5,000 Marvel characters including Spider Man, X-men, Ironman, and the like. One key element of copyright law that people tend to forgot is that the longer copyrights benefit corporations like Disney more than any one else, even the individual copyright(…)

Simon & Schuster to Put Content on Scribd

The subtext of every one of these types of posts is “If you can’t beat them, join them”. Scribd has become a haven for pirated content but given that it commands 50 million viewers per month, it has a market that is hard to ignore. Simon & Schuster is the most recent publisher to avail(…)

Weekly Tech Round Up

Michael Perry, editor of Inkling Books, wrote an editorial on why he officially objected to the Google Book Settlement. Meljean Brook, author of the Guardian series, wonders why Google couldn’t have asked for permission first before scanning and why Authors’ Guild is pursuing this settlement which requires authors to opt out. Epublishers Weekly has a(…)

Monday Links of Love

Someone’s going to hell over this. Vatican’s hottest in priest’s robes. (JD Robb’s Salvation in Death has a hot priest). According to one commenter, though, these pictures are not only 4 years old but also not of priests but of Gondola drivers in robes. Simon & Schuster has totally redone it’s website (thank god) and(…)

S&S Reports Quadruple Growth in eBooks

In the year end letter to her company, CEO for Simon and Schuster, puts on her happy face (after the grim one which dispersed the layoff information) and gives out the good news :   New website coming in 2009 (which I've heard will be author centric) eBook sales quadrupled in 2008.   More ebooks to(…)

S&S CEO Calls for Innovation in Publishing to Meet Economic Downturn

Carolyn Reidy addressed publishers at the Evangelical Christian Publisher's Association CEO Symposium and Publishing University in Illinois last week.  She stated that because of a combination of things "significant decrease in retail traffic, less consumer purchasing, a gloomy economic forecast, declining backlist sales, brand name authors continuing to sell but 'everything else is far off(…)

Simon & Schuster to Begin Delivering Content to Mobile Phones

Simon & Schuster is partnering with Macmillan Publishing Solutions to deliver over 500 Simon & Schuster books to any “web-enabled mobile phone.” Titles will include “The Secret”, Star Trek books, Nancy Drew mysteries and Ernest Hemingway stories. The plan is for all S&S ebooks to be available through the service. My suggestion? Get your YA(…)

Simon & Schuster wants ebook royalties to be 15%

Simon & Schuster has sent out an amendment to authors which purports to add a provision setting the standard royalty rate at 15% of the catalog retail price for e-books. The Author’s Guild sent out an alert to instruct authors of three things: members should discuss the amendment with their attorney or agent; warns that,(…)

S&S Sales Are Up; Harlequin and Harper Collins Down

The non fiction self help book by Joel Osteen, Become a Better You, helped to provide Simon & Schuster with good numbers in the fourth quarter. The Secret is still selling strong and it’s sequel, The Secret Gratitude Book, is set to be on shelves in December. Sales were up in all divisions resulting in(…)

Amazon, Penguin and HP Partner to Host Writing Competition

Amazon, Penguin and HP Partner to Host Writing Competition

Gathers.com, Simon & Schuster and Borders collaborated to run a writing contest that resulted in two well received mystery novels published in September 2007. Currently, the same three companies are running a writing competition for romance novels. Amazon must have seen the benefit of this and joined with Penguin and Hewlett-Packard to host “Amazon’s Breakthrough(…)

Ellora’s Cave to Put More Ebooks in Print through Simon & Schuster

Coming on the heels of the Samhain announcement on Monday of the joint venture with Kensington that will see a Samhain imprint as part of the Kensington line, is the news that Ellora’s Cave will be upping the number of books to be published and distributed through Simon & Schuster. Pocket Books began releasing Ellora’s(…)

Simon & Schuster Agrees that You Can Leave Them without Getting a Restraining Order

Two weeks ago I blogged about how Simon & Schuster was treating authors like abusive husbands: giving authors poor treatment but leaving them too broken to actually leave. Now it appears that S&S is going to kiss and makeup. The publishers are all grumbling at S&S for giving in so soon while bottles of champagne(…)

Why You, the Reader, Should Care About S&S’s Contract Changes

Why You, the Reader, Should Care About S&S’s Contract Changes

Sometimes I’ll blog about information that seems to be directed straight at writers and I wonder if some readers think to themselves, but this isn’t for us. It doesn’t affect us. Aren’t you guys a readers’ blog? We are, but sometimes industry changes have a great affect on we, the readers. Simon & Schuster’s announcement(…)

Simon & Schuster Wants You . . . Forever

Just as a prefatory matter, I want to explain a bit about copyright law and how that works in relation to authors. Authors create a unique work to which they own a copyright. That copyright gives them the right to copy and distribute that work. Authors sell that right of copying and distribution to publishers.(…)