Booksquare

We find that we’re having some difficulty synthesizing the “Future of the Book: Dead or Alive” panel we attended on the final day of the hectic, overwhelming 2007 South by Southwest Interactive Festival. Perhaps it’s because the topic requires far longer than a one hour session. Perhaps it’s because we’re still wrapping our rain-soaked mind [...]

Darlings,
Where are you? We have been in the lovely city of Austin (the sun is shining, the grackles are, well, one doesn’t need to discuss the private functions of birds) since Thursday and haven’t seen you anywhere. We have gone so far as to take the rather rude step of reading nametags rather than looking [...]

We realize that many of you think that Booksquare is a well-oiled, well-planned, and well-considered machine. Some of you may even be under the impression that we plan our posts in advance. That is untrue. Most days we wake with a vague notion of maybe writing something brilliant. Most days, we end up erring on [...]

It is an interesting question: what role do publishers serve in this modern world? In the past, the work of the publisher was very clear. Editing, marketing, and distribution occupied the days of those who poured out of Manhattan office buildings for lunch, for those who devoured manuscripts on the subway ride home. But as [...]

The creative community has an almost unnatural fear of piracy. Billions are being spent to protect works of art from “unlawful distribution”. Billions. Like millions, but bigger. Because it starts with a B. The belief is that each and every time someone grabs something off the Internet for free, a sale is lost. There isn’t [...]

Maybe it’s because we spent our childhood in a room lined with books. Truly, every wall, except for the ones that were really doorways, was filled with books. Eight feet of books, or maybe six feet*. Or maybe it’s because our schedule means that so much of our reading is done online. Really — there’s [...]

In between this and that this week (mostly that, hence so little this), we have been intrigued by the recent business venture announced by HarperCollins. As one of the few publishers who took a lead in digitizing its catalog, HC decided it could turn the free advice it has been offering fellow publishers into a [...]

Gosh, it seems like a year since we sat in a room and listened as a representative of Microsoft outlined the company’s ambitious plans for its book search project. In reality, it’s been closer to nine months. Which would make it six months since the company wooed authors and publishers at BookExpo America. “Come to [...]

If you didn’t realize that Google was moving toward a paid content model with its various book initiatives, you haven’t been paying attention. Though the news has apparently just crossed the Atlantic Ocean, this goal was made clear at this year’s BEA (and, well, should have been obvious to everyone from the beginning).
While publishers and [...]

While we presume our dear readers are doing whatever it is that they do one day before Thanksgiving, we got a free pass on the cooking thing this year. Which is fine because this six-percent royalty for e-books issue is gnawing at our soul. Heck, 10% and maybe even 20% would gnaw.
Book publishing, as we [...]