• Random House Hires Ruth Reichl
  Good move for Random House.
• TOC Frankfurt Preview: “Customer Experience” is What Matters Most
  While we put about missing this year’s Tools of Change Frankfurt, this article about a session focusing on customer experience tells us this year’s event will be awesome!
• Federal appeals court tosses out method for calculating music streaming royalties
  Nearly missed this one. Appeals court sides with Yahoo (and, essentially, other music streaming services), indicating the formulae used to determine royalties was not proper.
• Time Warner CEO not a fan of 99-cent TV rentals, either
  Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
• Reversal of Royalties: A Modest Proposal
  Author Bob Mayer offers up an interesting idea, one we suspect most will dismiss. Don’t. Give it some thought, make it better.
• Amazon Launches Facebook e-Commerce Store
  This is bigger news than it seems.
• Alyson Books Will Restructure as E-book Only House; Weise Leaves
  Sad news with a positive angle. The hard part, as noted, is finding an experience digital publisher.
• Booksellers Hear Details of the Much-Delayed Google Editions
  More details emerge. Like, it’s likely to be six months before launch. Google Editions will be the ebook engine for ABA sites, but will also sell through Google and possibly other vendors. All interesting.
• Macomber Moves to Random
  After a long and prosperous career at Harlequin, Debbie Macomber moves to a new publisher. Wow.
• Publishers’ Agency Model Punishes Mid-List Authors
  Is it us, or is there a lot of confusion going on in this article? All sort of ideas being conflated, which obscures a potentially valid argument.
• When is E-Royalty Not a Royalty? When 9th Circuit Court Says It Isn’t
  Finally! We’ve been wondering when more people were going to mention this.
• Frankfurt 2010: Will Frankfurt Soon Be an E-Book Fair?
  Continuing the trend wherein all book events are now digital book events, the big focus at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair is ebooks. Not comments from Brian Murray in particular.
• Counterpoint to Close New York Office
  Basically, the Soft Skull office is closing, and it looks like the editorial team is departing (though they are staying on in a freelance capacity to fulfill contracted obligations).
• Coding Poetry for Digital Publication
  The HTML is hard excuse was perfectly fine in 1995. In 2010 (nearly 2011!), it’s ridiculous.
• New Attributor Study Tracks Demand for Pirated E-Books
  Publishers Weekly essentially reprints a press release from a company looking to drum up money from publishers. Of course the study will show what they want it to show…and can someone please explain the “badge” thing?
• Microsoft and Adobe Chiefs Meet to Discuss Apple
  This one is for Kirk.
• Is NPR Trying to Sell Michele Norris’ New Book?
  Interesting examination of how Michele Norris’s book received much coverage on NPR. Yes, she plays for the home team, but did they go overboard?
• The iBookstore six months after launch: One big failure
  We don’t necessarily agree, but have found the iBookstore is a holy mess of shopping experience whereas Amazon really gets how to sell books. As for reading on the iPad? Chez BS is split 50/50, though the heavier reader prefers the Kindle device.
• Second Biggest E-Book Sales Month Restores Confidence
  And your monthly ebooks sales chart, courtesy of our friends at eReads.
• Convergences, Real and Imagined: A Conclusion
  Great thinking and pondering and analysis from Richard Nash.
• Opportunity Virtually Knocks
  Many good ideas here, but the seeming dismal of ebooks as a revenue stream/opportunity for traditional booksellers is shortsighted.
• The Finkler Answer
  Excellent thinking about global language rights and how the acquisition thereof (or not) impacts a title.
• Penguin to launch a social network for bookworms
  Just the other day, we were wondering what was going on with Spinebreakers. Glad to see it’s still being used and is growing.
• James Patterson Joins the Kindle 1,000,000 Books Club
  As we all try to tease out real numbers from the various sources, we finally have one reliable data point: authors who have exceeded one million Kindle units. Get enough of those…
• ‘Adderall Diaries’ Blurs Books-Apps Line
  Quite a bit about this NYT piece on Stephen Elliott’s “Adderall Diaries” app and the involvement of the great folk from Electric Literature is worth noting. Such as: 1) the fact that Graywolf Press let the author do this, and 2) that Electric Lit is diversifying its core business.
• Lagardere Feels Full Impact of Meyer; HBG Digital Sales at 9%
  Ah, the lack of Stephenie Meyer sales is being felt.
• eBooks Ready To Climb Past $1 Billion
  Forrester predicts big growth in the market over the next four or so years.
• E-Books Bright Spot in Bleak September
  Interesting numbers. Adult trade is down. Ebooks up.
• Borders Announces New Web Site – Discounts More Than 100,000 Bestselling Books
  Another new website from Borders. Is it me, or does this happen with alarming regularity? (and is it new or just redesigned?)
• E-Book Growth Slows, Still Up 112% in October
  Sparse information, meaning no reason given for slow growth. Other markets are slow as well.
• E-books Entice as New Frontier for Ads
  Not loving this idea, and wondering how the rule of author approval is going to work. For some authors, it would have to be on an ad-by-ad basis in order to prevent the wrong kinds of ads populating some books.
• The Last Country House Party? E-Books and Publishing’s Phony War
  Interesting piece from Peter Ginna of Bloomsbury. We’ve been wondering about the budgeting issue for some time. Consider: most of the books being released over the next year or so were acquired under very different budget scenarios.
• Amazon Sold ‘Millions’ of Kindles in the Last 73 Days
  Looks like this will be a huge year for ebook readers. Which will likely be followed by a huge jump in ebook sales. Hope everyone’s prepared.
• Author Slams eBook Piracy, Son Outs Her As a Music Pirate
  Yes, piracy costs money, but when you’re complaining about how it impacts you, don’t get caught with your pants down.
• International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) Announces New Executive Director
  Bill McCoy takes over for the departing Michael Smith.

The post The Daily Square – The Kids Are Alright Edition appeared first on Booksquare.

• Borders Group Reports Second Quarter 2010 Results
  More worrisome numbers from Borders. Here’s hoping the teddy bears do the trick.

The post The Daily Square – My Generation Edition appeared first on Booksquare.

• Borders Reduces E-reader to $99
  And there you have it. An ereader below $100. Oh, wow, the world is still turning.
• Random House’s Strong Half-Year Results Driven By ‘Dragon Tattoo’ Sales
  Stieg Larsson, who will not likely be producing more books, drives huge dollars to Random House. His ebook sales are phenomenal. Which leads to the question: does the lack of an iBookstore agreement hurt RH in any way?
• A Moment of Jen
  From Jennifer Weiner: Instead of asking which books and which authors deserve the Times’ coverage, maybe we should think about what kind of book review section readers deserve. Not a crazy idea at all.

The post The Daily Square – Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere Edition appeared first on Booksquare.

• Barnes Noble to Shutter Lincoln Center Store
  This is big news. Store closing due to increased rent costs. You’d think landlords would have a bit more foresight, but one supposes losing a major renter is the cost of taking a stand. In other thoughts, how long will the space remain empty?
• Borders to Sell Build-A-Bear Items as Readers Switch to E-Books
  You know when you can’t tell if something is a genius idea or insane? This is one of those moments.
• Why Is Amazon So Secretive About Its Best Selling Kindle Numbers?
  Why, one wonders, does this matter? Since the Kindle platform is extended across all possible devices, does the number of actual dedicated readers sold really have relevance? Better metrics are actual books sold across the platform versus one single channel that appeals only to a particular type of reader.
• Kobo Opens New York Office
  Excellent news for Kobo, and congratulations to the company for hiring the extraordinary Ami Greko.
• Sparks Book Gets a Novel Promotion
  So many thoughts, so little time. Very smart for Nicholas Sparks’ people to include book promotion as part of the deal when Relativity acquired the motion picture rights. Will it help? Probably. Sure doesn’t cost Relativity much to try.
• Oxford English Dictionary ‘will not be printed again’
  Possibly the most interesting part of this story — seriously, of course the chances of a print edition were diminish, especially if the next version is 20 years away — is that the dictionary has never made a profit. Love that Oxford University (Press) is focused on the big picture.

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• “If it were my money, there’s no way I’d put up with this cr*p”, says young reader
  Is this really how you want the next generation of readers thinking about ebooks? Especially when the competition for reading is so intense?
• Lots of Little Improvements Make the Kindle 3 The Best E-Ink E-reader
  As the holiday shopping season approaches (noooo!), debating on the mother’s gift. Trying to resist urge to be selfish…give her K2, give us K3. Oh, the moral dilemmas we face.
• Publishing Revenue Down at Lagardere
  Not bad, considering it’s the post Stephenie Meyer world.

The post The Daily Square – Whichever Way the Wind Blows Edition appeared first on Booksquare.

• Random House’s Backlist E-Book Deal With Literary Agent Andrew Wylie Leaves Much Unanswered
  Trying not to make it all Wylie, all the time, but much analysis and conjecture. Sarah Weinman does a nice job of the former. One unanswered (but asked) question: what did Random House pay to acquire these rights? No, we won’t get an answer.
• Women Are Not Marshmallow Peeps, And Other Reasons There’s No ‘Chick Lit’
  Nice piece on pundits’ tendency to dismiss legitimate critiques of the Jonathan Franzen coverage by belittling those make the commentary. While not exclusively a male approach, it’s often men who engage in the diminishing of women’s work.
• The RH/Wylie Showdown Ends, New Digital Royalty Rate Is Born
  Technically, a new rate has not been born. The rates being tossed around in today’s press coverage of the end of a very short saga are very much in line with the rates we’ve heard other agents have gotten for backlist titles. And backlist is interesting, but it’s frontlist where the real battles — and precedents — are taking place.

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• RH and Wylie Come to Terms; Random ‘Wins’
  Always worry about headlines that include wins. In this case, one wonders how much it cost Random House to win (presumably higher royalties than they’d been willing to give, possibly some sort of cash consideration). And one wonders how this impacts those who previously purchased the books. Will they be allowed to keep them? Will there be a transfer of publisher, making it invisible to the consumer. And, of course, one wonders which books were impacted by this deal.
• Nook Drives 21% Increase in Revenue for Barnes Noble
  Barnes and Noble also claiming an overall 20% of entire ebook market. Good to see their digital numbers exceeding expectations.

The post The Daily Square – Lonely Afternoon Edition appeared first on Booksquare.

• Post-Medium Publishing
  Interesting thoughts about the value of content versus format, and how publishing isn’t doing much for the former.
• Seattle libraries to shut down for a week
  While the library is able to keep certain digital services (ebooks and access to databases) open during the budget-induced shutdown, so many other core services will be off limits to citizens.
• Kindle — xkcd Cartoon
  You know you can’t resist…
• Borders Chief Financial Officer Mark Bierley Quits
  At what point do we turn away from Borders news because we can’t take the pain anymore?

The post The Daily Square – Compositions for the Young and Old Edition appeared first on Booksquare.

• E-reading: Revolution in the making or fading fad?
  This article makes no sense. The headline implies one thing, the body of the article another, the entire premise yet another. Sigh.
• June e-Book Sales Up 119%
  For those keeping track.
• Jonathan Franzen Stars in Special Rumpus Bookclub
  While this *seems* like an awesome idea, it’s really alienating for all those who a) don’t have time to shop their local indie (i.e., people with jobs, kids, or other commitments), b) people who don’t have local bookstores available, and c) library users. Heck, even digi-book readers are largely left out, since the ABA’s program is less-than-robust.

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• The 1% Windfall: Why Publishers Need to Implement “Dynamic Pricing”
  While we don’t doubt the need for more dynamic pricing in the world of publishing, we doubt experts who misstate how Amazon was selling books. Yes, they were selling *some* ebooks at a loss, but not all ebooks. It seems this distinction makes a huge difference.
• Books and Books Arrives and Sides Are Taken
  Does this have to be ugly? No. Is it ugly? Yes.
• Dents in my Desk: Ellen Hopkins Disinvited to Teen Lit Fest
  Sometimes, there are no words.
• Publishers Behaving Badly–Again
  Macmillan is sending letters to authors — not their agents or attorneys! — asking them to sign amendments to agreements for digital rights. Agent Kristin Nelson has the story and some good advice.

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