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JaneBook ReviewsBarnes & Noble / Ebooks / Espresso Book Machine / Google / Harlequin / Mills & Boon / POD / Twilight Saga1 Comments

Google announced a deal last week with Espresso Book Machine wherein the full panoply of out of copyright books Google has scanned and digitized can be available through the POD machines.   The books can be printed in less than five minutes. The suggested retail price for such a book is $8.00.   Maybe publishers want to consider my idea for customized print on demand books?

An enterprising coffee shop owner in London’s Soho has created a Mills & Boon reading club where authors are invited to come and participate in a reading and conversation with readers.    In other Harlequin conglomerate news, Harlequin has partnered with Softbank to bring digital adaptations of Harlequin manga to South Korea with cooperation of Teruten Incorporated.

Barnes and Noble has announced that the downloads for both the BN App and the BN eReader App have surpassed 1,000,000 mark.

Speaking of ebooks, Dystel & Goderich has posted a response to the ComputerWorld article by Mike Elgan on ebooks.   The ComputerWorld article suggests that innovation needs to happen in publishing but all the change is focused on the retailing and reading experience in the digital market.   Dystel & Goderich agent, Michael, agrees and disagrees.   Both Mikes appear to not realize that digital borrowing of audio books takes place already.   O_o.

Blast editor in chief, John Guilfoil, borrows from Janice Radway’s seminal scholarly work to suggest that the feminist/anti-feminist arguments of the Twilight series are both right. Radway suggested romance books both empower and reinforce gender stereotypes.   Likewise, Guilfoil argues that perhaps the Twilight series can provide ample argument for both sides of the feminist argument.   For me, I think that the Twilight series isn’t a statement on girl power, even if Meyer would like it to be. I plan on letting my daughter read them but seriously discussing whether trying to kill herself repeatedly in order to gain the attention of a boy makes a lot of sense.

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Jane

Jane Litte is the founder of Dear Author, a lawyer, and a lover of pencil skirts. She self publishes NA and contemporaries (and publishes with Berkley and Montlake) and spends her downtime reading romances and writing about them. Her TBR pile is much larger than the one shown in the picture and not as pretty. You can reach Jane by email at jane @ dearauthor dot com

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