Booksquare

Today’s links of interest:

• LA Times to Fold Standalone Book Review
  It’s official. And not surprising. Once the section went on life support, pulling the plug was just a matter of time. Maybe now we can move on and create something bigger and better.
• The founder of ArtsJournal talks about arts and new media
  Cool interview with Douglas McLennan of ArtsJournal (a guy, by the way, who responds promptly to email!) about the future of his publication — note especially his comments about the importance of well-curated content.
• Why the iPhone is the best and worst e-book reader ever
  A more detailed look at the eReader app for the iPhone.
• Asda gains 79% share of £1 Harry
  Deep discounts drive sales and force Asda to eat the difference. But, hey, what’s money in this economy?
• William Butler Yeats?s Relationship With Maud Gonne Is Explored at the National Library of Ireland
  Yeats in multimedia. You know he’d like it.

Today’s links of interest:

• Engineering the Risk Out of Book Publishing
  HarperStudio has contracted for 17 books. Interesting tidbit: one is fiction (or a fable, so presumably fiction).
• Authors Guild Warns on S&S e-Book Royalty Proposal
  You wonder why some authors and agents are having a hard time getting on board with the e-revolution????
• A digital Albom through Kindle
  And so it begins. Amazon has signed Mitch Albom to an exclusive Kindle-only deal. Granted it’s an epublication of a graduation speech, but you know what they say about first steps.

Today’s links of interest:

• A digital Albom through Kindle
  And so it begins. Amazon has signed Mitch Albom to an exclusive Kindle-only deal. Granted it’s an epublication of a graduation speech, but you know what they say about first steps.

Today’s links of interest:

• Bertelsmann to sell more book, music club units
  File under: As the business turns.
• Publishing News to cease publication
  This is very sad.
• Los Angeles Times Publisher David Hiller resigns
  Sad. Really sad. If Sam Zell wants to run a real newspaper, he needs to get his head into the business rather than running real professionals off the tracks.

Today’s links of interest:

• Kindle Title Sales Appear to Increase
  Per Amazon: "…on a title-by-title basis, of the 130,000 titles available on Kindle and in physical form, Kindle sales now make up over 12% of sales for those titles." Note the odd phrasing of the headline, however.
• Houghton Signs Book on Federer-Nadal Match
  Yeah, a whole book. On a tennis match. You gotta wonder.
• Amazon Kindles Sales as Readers Demand Novels Online
  Of course, based on online chatter about the iPhone ereaders, maybe we can change the headline to "readers demand novels online", though, hmm, that’s awkward. How about, "readers do too read ebooks"?
• Carry-On Books To Take You Up, Up And Away
  Nancy Pearl offers a few choice airplane books and some useful selection advice: "Mostly you want something that’s intriguing enough to make you forget that you’re 34,000 feet in the air and, in your heart of hearts, you don’t really understand how the plane stays up."

Today’s links of interest:

• Exact Editions: Charkin Blog in book form
  The former blog of Macmillan chief Richard Charkin, now coming to a book near you! More than a few interesting questions raised in this post from Exact Editions, which outed the upcoming publication when a request for permission to use content was received.
• Publishers and authors in book fight
  As Australia looks at ways to open up the market to imported books, publishers and authors argue that cheap books will kill local production.
• As Textbooks Go ‘Custom,’ Students Pay
  On one hand, we like the idea of customizable textbooks. On the other hand, we worry that high-priced textbooks aren’t good for students.
• What Publishers Can Learn From the Gaming Industry
  We’re guesting at Foreword Magazine this month. Post One: it’s the story, stupid.
• Harlequin Launches Enriched Edition eBooks
  Very cool. We like the idea of, oh, using the Internet to extend the story of the story.
• Welcome to the ETC-Press (Beta)
  ETC-Press has created a Lulu imprint/channel to expand their ability to connect books and audiences. We approve.
• Could Microblogs Destroy the Auction Paradigm?
  Galleycat considers the impact of Twitter on auctions and "big deals" (we think, not so much ultimately). (via Richard Nash, who has a lovely quote in the article, via Twitter…)

Today’s links of interest:

• Harlequin Launches Enriched Edition eBooks
  Very cool. We like the idea of, oh, using the Internet to extend the story of the story.
• Welcome to the ETC-Press (Beta)
  ETC-Press has created a Lulu imprint/channel to expand their ability to connect books and audiences. We approve.
• Could Microblogs Destroy the Auction Paradigm?
  Galleycat considers the impact of Twitter on auctions and "big deals" (we think, not so much ultimately). (via Richard Nash, who has a lovely quote in the article, via Twitter…)

Today’s links of interest:

• 2b or not 2b?
  Can it be true? Can texting be good for reading and writing?
• Ex-Prosecutor?s Book Accuses Bush of Murder
  Ignoring the obvious punchline to note that Vincent Bugliosi’s latest book hasn’t received any mainstream media love, yet is selling quite well. Lesson? Readers don’t play by the old rules anymore…and neither should publishers.
• Is a Kindle to books as an iPod is to tunes?
  No. But it’s paving the way for the next device.

Read more…

Today’s links of interest:

• Brave New World: Safe Harbours in a Copyright and Privacy Storm
  Martyn Daniels considers the recent decision whereby Google must hand over consumer data to Viacom.
• Private detectives hunt for late library books
  While we delight in the mental image, it does raise some questions about good use of taxpayer dollars. Of course, now we’re thinking of our next series: BS, Book Detective.

Today’s links of interest:

• LA Times to cut 250 jobs, including 150 news jobs: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance
  From the Department of Painful Admissions: "We’re great about putting out a paper; we’re getting a lot better at putting up a Web site," he [Russ Stanton] said.
• US teacher is suspended for letting pupils read bestseller
  Because, wow, don’t want to expose kids to real life situations like swearing.