Todays links of interest: The Perseus Books Group Adds FiledBy as Online Marketing PlatformStarting with Vanguard Press, Perseus is joining the Filedby family. W00t! Fiction Faces Hard Facts: Newcomers Are a Tough SellWhich, you know, isn’t really what this article is about. More like, since big houses are consolidating bets on surefire hits, small press is seeing increased opportunity. Publishers Nurture Rivals to KindleSorta, kinda.
Todays links of interest: Advice for authorsSeth Godin lays out important points for authors as they go down the publishing path. He mentions number two — start promoting your book three years in advance — twice because it’s so important. And it is. ‘I Want to Be the Online Charlie Rose’: A Chat with Bethanne PatrickAt Follow the Reader, the brilliant Bethanne Patrick talks about her modest goals. and more. #followreaderThis week’s #followreader discussion on Twitter revolved around bloggers and bookstores and how to make the relationship better. Great conversation! Thank You for Being HonestThere is a lot to digest
Todays links of interest: Free Speech Groups Criticize Dismissal of Wisconsin Library Board MembersOnce again, the few try to impose their will on the many. If you don’t like the books, don’t read them, but don’t try to stop others from learning and reading just because you’re afraid of reality. Amazon starts charging by the megabyte for delivering personal documents to your Kindle – adds support for DOCX and RTF file formatsLittle known secret: cost of accessing Whispernet is not free; it’s built into the price you pay for your Kindle books. New fact: Amazon is increasing costs to upload
In the coming months, much will be written and said about the Google Book Search settlement. While I do support it in principle, I, like others, have niggles and quibbles and some distinct worries about the specifics. Part of the problem, of course, was that a subset of interested parties created the class, a subset of interested parties negotiated the settlement, and it just now that everyone is able to look at the final results and ask questions. It’s a settlement only a mother could love. Google, of course, won in a big way. In fact, they won bigger than
Todays links of interest: Reports: Google, DOJ talked about Book SearchAnd this week in GBS just gets more and more interesting.
Todays links of interest: The New York Times Laments Forward Progress with the KindleJoe Wikert responds to the silliness that is the New York Times. Peter Arnell Loses AgainIn which one man has a very, very bad streak of luck. People, if you take the money to write a book, you have to fulfill your contractual obligations. Books Stay Part Of the Grocery Store MixOr, if you sell books where people are, they will buy them. Read that on a fortune cookie.
Did you feel the Earth shift a little bit yesterday? Maybe around 1:30 or so Pacific Standard Time (the only time zone that matters!)? Did you Twitter feed seem to be filled with jangly nerves? It turns out that Amazon bought Lexcycle today. Lexcycle? Huh? Who? Erm? Lexcycle is the mighty little company behind the bookish iPhone application darling, the Stanza Reader. Not only were they near first, they’ve been the best. With a strong focus on usability (or, if you will, making it easy for real people to accomplish the very simple goal of reading), support for ePub, and
Todays links of interest: L.A. Times awards 2008 book prizesCongratulations to the winners! Franklin letters foundIt’s nice to know that there are still treasures to be discovered in our world. Microsoft To Re-Enter eBooks?Mike Cane contemplates the possibility of Microsoft entering the ebook market. It’s probably a given they will — Microsoft is not a company to let others play in a space without giving it a shot, too. Also, and maybe irrelevant, MS has library of scanned texts. Can these be repurposed in a useful (read: non-scanned graphic version) way?
Todays links of interest: BOOK: The SequelThe Perseus Books Group is engaging in a very cool, very ambitious BEA project: take a book from start to finish during the conference. Watch as editing, marketing, production, and even conversion to e-formats happens. Live. No really, this is cool. Why should I care about e-books? Lessons learned the hard way from the newspaper bizAh a long list of questions to be answered. Publisher ConfidentialDelightful. Comments from booksellers, readers, and librarians about what they want from publishers. Stop us if you’ve heard some of these before. Deseret Book demotes ‘Twilight’Stephenie Meyer books will
Todays links of interest: The Sun Sets on Desert Rose Literary AgencyAs Victoria Strauss reports, Leann Murphy of the presumably now-defunct Desert Rose Literary Agency has been served her just desserts. Love the One You’re With: Book Review Ethics Re-examined, Part TwoBethanne Patrick continues her examination of the ethics and sticky problems of book reviews. The Future of Book Coverage, Part II: Amazon.com and the Revenue QuestionMax Magee takes a long look at why Amazon’s hidden stakeholders — book blogs — choose to participate in the Associates program. Interesting points about process, accounting, and depth of content.
