Booksquare

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 [...]

We are fully aware that we rant a bit on the subject of royalties for electronic media. Ranting keeps us young. Plus we think it’s the most important topic facing artists today — and, as evidenced by Saturday’s dinner with a fine, upstanding member of the Director’s Guild of America, we remain concerned that too [...]

If we were the type to eat our words, we would be, yes, considering swallowing all of the things we’ve said about the publishing industry and their slow movement into the modern world*. Just this week, near the end of 2006, a mere dozen or so years after the dawn of the Age of Amazon, [...]

Either or, either or, either…what is it about the world we live in that every move is giant step forward with the potential to surpass the leader with just a little more effort? Or is it just that journalists spend a little too much time reprinting press releases and not enough time thinking about the [...]

As most of you know, a little Book Fair is happening right now in Frankfurt. What happens there will likely stay there, and much of the news trickling out of the event seems to indicate that the conference has a bit of a “same time, next year” feel to it. Especially when it comes to [...]