Amazon's suggestion that the ebook and paperback revolutions are comparable has sparked scorn, satire and indigationWhen Amazon published their rather extraordinary "Message from the Amazon Books Team" at readersunited.com last week, they got a few things right and a few things wrong. Alongside a realistic analysis of ebook pricing and a rather aggressive plea to bombard the CEO of Hachette with threatening emails, the letter noted that "Just ahead of World War II, there was a radical invention that shook the foundations of book publishing". This was the paperback, and apparently it was opposed by publishers who "dug in and circled the wagons". Which is a bit odd, as the person most widely credited with the popularisation of the paperback (but not its invention) was Allen Lane, who, as founder of Penguin Books, introduced paperback classics to the British public.Amazon's other bizarre decision, alongside the somewhat unnecessary second world war reference, was to quote George Orwell selectively on the subject and accuse him of "collusion". In fact, Orwell was making a sarcastic dig in favour of the paperback, and Amazon has been accused of doublespeak by the Orwell estate. The parody page booksunited.org, created by online writer Dan Hon in the voice of the books themselves, smartly notes that "We are not fighting for our existence. We know that as long as you humans exist, you will write, and you will read." Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2014-08-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
Gains in its educational technology group were not enough to offset declines in the children’s book publishing and distribution unit resulting in a 5.8% decline in total sales at Scholastic for the first quarter ended August 31. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2013-09-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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News Corp.’s long-awaited split is official. Rupert Murdoch’s media behemoth Friday completed the separation of its entertainment from its news and information businesses into two publicly traded companies. The new News Corp (spelled with no period, differentiating it from the previous... Continue reading at AdWeek
[ AdWeek | 2013-06-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The future of book publishing is increasingly digital -- and increasingly tilted towards genre fiction. Continue reading at Wired
[ Wired | 2013-06-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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When New Harbinger Publications cofounders Matthew McKay and Patrick Fanning were establishing their small press in 1973, it was Fanning’s monthly reading of Popular Mechanics magazine that served as a step-by-step guide to book publishing for the partners. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2013-05-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Harlequin parent company Torstar has announced restructuring in its book publishing and general... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-05-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Penguin imprint Allen Lane will publish the first volume of Margaret Thatcher’s authorised... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-04-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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In the modern world of book publishing, should we all be preparing for a second career as an entrepreneur? Plenty of our colleagues are choosing that career path. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2012-11-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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High-speed inkjet printing has been described as the biggest development in book publishing in the past 50 years. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-10-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Johnny Depp launches his own book imprint with publishing company HarperCollins. Continue reading at BBC News
[ BBC News | 2012-10-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Allen Lane has dominated the shortlist for this year’s £10,000 Royal Society Winton... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-09-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Eli Horowitz does not think of himself as someone who “fetishizes the book.” But he’s also seen what books become, in digital form, and has not always been impressed. A former managing editor and publisher at McSweeney’s, Horowitz describes much of what he has seen in the digital revolution in... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-09-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Fiscal 2012 was a good year made great by The Hunger Games,” Scholastic chairman Dick Robinson told analysts in a conference call last Thursday to discuss results in the year ended May 31, in which sales rose 14%, to $2.15 billion, and net income jumped from $39.4 million to $102.4 million. The... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-07-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Since its launch in September 2010 by former Simon & Schuster executive Rick Richter, Ruckus Media Group had released 20 apps, but the company plans a big increase in 2012, with 100 new titles scheduled. To increase its output, Ruckus is using a mix of original stories and licensed... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-03-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Allen Lane will be publishing another title by Neil MacGregor, author of A History of the World... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2012-03-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Twenty years after it was founded by former Pantheon publisher Andre Schiffrin as a nonprofit publisher with a mission statement to publish “in the public interest,” the New Press is on something of a roll. The house has a new bestseller—Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow—spacious offices in... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-03-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The word synergy, in the world of book publishing, feels like a term that died in the ’90s. Back then, almost every publisher housed within a media conglomerate was touting the ways it would use its TV-making or movie-making sister companies to sell books. Fox would boost HarperCollins.... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-02-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Mon, 14/03/2011 - 08:52 United Agents co-founder and children's agent Rosemary Canter died on Friday [11th March]. Canter began her publishing career as assistant fiction editor at Penguin Books in 1972, eventually working in children's book... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-03-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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