By Edward Nawotka O’Reilly has adding another book fair to its roster for 2011: the Bologna Children’s Book Fair. The popular tech conference will organize a day of events related to children’s publishing for Sunday 27 March 2011 — just prior to the opening of the fair — “focusing on digital and mobile technology” (and, presumably, with [...]
By Hannah Johnson As some of you may have noticed, our server went down today because we had too much traffic. As @babetteross said, “Well that’s both good news and bad news!” How true. As I waiting in the customer service “phone queue” for 45 minutes before finally talking to someone at our hosting service, it occurred [...]
By Edward Nawotka Throughout the month of December, we’re going to look back at the year 2010 and discuss the most dramatic events in publishing from this year. Today’s installment comes courtesy of Mike Shatzkin, CEO of the Idea Logical Company, and discusses the introduction of agency pricing for e-books. What do you think think were the most [...]
By Mike Shatzkin, CEO, the Idea Logical Company The most dramatic event in publishing in 2010? That’s easy. It was the face-down between five of the six biggest publishers in the US and Amazon over trading terms in the e-book marketplace: the shift from wholesale pricing to agency. Even in theory, the shift was complicated. Publishers’ established [...]
By Edward Nawotka Michel Houellebecq lifted certain portions of his novel Prix Goncourt-winning novel La carte et le territoire from Wikipedia. Not only did he admit to doing it, he insisted it’s not plagiarism, that it was simply part of his technique. Over the weekend, a French blogger has turned around and used Houellebecq’s actions as justification for posting [...]
By Edward Nawotka Fat from Thanksgiving, I’m attending Guadalajara Book Fair to spend a few days visiting booths and talking with publishers, which should surely take the pounds off (unless I gorge on the amazing Mexican food I hope to find down here -– any suggestions?). The event kicked off on Friday, but due to holiday, I [...]
By Michael Bhaskar People constantly talk about social reading as the next business model for publishing. Well, it’s here, it’s The Mongoliad. In the febrile, occasionally paranoid, always news hungry world of digital publishing, it seems strange that something so important should have slipped by so unnoticed, yet The Mongoliad seems to have been largely overlooked by [...]
By Edward Nawotka In today’s lead story about Neal Stephenson’s The Mongoliad, writer Michael Bhaskar asserts that the projects represents “the next business model for publishing.” The project enlisted a team of top writers, working with computer programmers and business development personnel, to create an elaborate and sophisticated ‘verse in what, ultimately, amounts to an open-ended [...]
It’s Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year, when retailers (traditionally) hope to reach profitability and consumers stretch their credit cards to the breaking point. So, whether you’re out standing in line to take advantage of an “door buster” deal or have opted to stay at home and wait for Cyber Monday instead, here is [...]
Today is Thanksgiving — the day Americans take time to get together with family, cook an enormous meal, watch football, and (hopefully) take time to reflect on their blessings. It’s also the start of the all-important holiday shopping season . . . fingers crossed, publishers! Over the next few weeks you’ll likely be attending several holiday parties, or [...]
