Today’s links of interest:
- RH unveils POD Collection
In positive Random House news, they’re moving toward POD for a collection of titles. - Random House pulls out of BookExpo Canada
One of those days where Random House telegraphs the fact that it’s doing serious cost cutting. - Pensions Frozen at Random House Inc.
Ouch — oh and, not the best way to keep your best and brightest! - Romance Titles Coming To the iPhone
Congratulations to Samhain for entering into this bold experiment! - Watching Watchmen Sell Books
We love these little rays of sunshine in the holiday news stream. - WGA Files for Arbitration, Claims Producers Aren?t Paying New-Media Residuals
Yeah, who didn’t see that one coming? - Barnes & Noble Reports Third Quarter Financial Results
Ouch. Have we mentioned that books make fine holiday gifts? - Peter Matthiessen, Annette Gordon Reed Among National Book Award Winners
Congratulations to all winners! - A book as Christmas gift? Here?s a smarter idea
Once again, not a good idea. If you love books, this is not the way to go (also, not a Netflix for books unless Bookswim has entered into deals with the publishers for ongoing payments to compensate for lost sales). - PowerHouse Sells Out First Printing of Obama Book – 11/18/2008 1:09:00 PM – Publishers Weekly
How cool is this: "PowerHouse Books sold out its first 55,000-copy first edition of Yes We Can: Barack Obama?s History-Making Presidential Campaign, featuring photographs by Scout Tufankjian, nearly a month before its scheduled mid-December release date. The house has ordered a second printing of 25,000 copies to arrive at the same time." - Publishers Win Copyright Infringement Suit
This one of those weird ones: the ruling says that the sellers weren’t able to claim the First Sale doctrine because they were selling textbooks that were not produced for sale in the United States.
It’s unfortunate but the majority of the comments following the article about Bookswim don’t seem to understand the difference between libraries or selling used books and what Netflix etc and Bookswim are doing. It appears some major public education is needed.
amen! As I keep noting, do you honestly think the studios would let Netflix exist if they weren’t getting ongoing compensation?
I’m curious about that: in what way could studios have refused to “let” Netflix exist? Technically what Netflix did was legal even before they entered into revenue-sharing agreements. Do you think the studios would have managed to get a first sale exemption a la records and software? More to the current point, do you think there’s a real chance that book publishers could?