Sep 2 2009
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(…)
Jun 11 2009
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(…)
Apr 26 2009
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(…)
Jan 12 2009
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(…)
Dec 23 2008
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(…)
Nov 11 2008
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(…)
Oct 13 2008
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(…)
Jul 19 2008
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,(…)
Nov 8 2007
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(…)
Oct 1 2007
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(…)
Jun 6 2007
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(…)
Jun 4 2007
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(…)
May 22 2007
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(…)
May 17 2007
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.(…)
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