Harlequin has announced the launch of what they call “enriched editions”: ebooks containing “interactive buttons that hyperlink to Web sites containing photos, historical commentaries, illustrations, sound effects, maps, articles and more, bringing the world of the novel to life without the reader having to leave the computer or the current screen page.”Press release
Archives for July 2008
Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center Starts Lulu.com "Imprint"
The university has announced ECW Press, an academic imprint designed to experiment with “flexibility in publishing without the limitations encountered by traditional publishing.” They note in the release that “all ETC Press publications will be released under a Creative Commons license, and will also have associated websites to encourage and enable a community of collaborative authorship and discussion.” Lulu.com is their technology partner, providing print-on-demand along with downloads. The press can be found at http://etc.cmu.edu/etcpress/Release
Personnel News
At Goldberg McDuffie Communications, Kathleen Carter has been promoted to senior publicist and Liza Lucas has been promoted to publicist. In the UK, David & Charles has named Stephen Bateman as managing director and publisher, starting in mid-August. He has been working for France, and set up DK’s children’s division there. David & Charles’ UK operation has previously been run out of F+W’s US office.
Zell Aide on Book Pages
“Heard a conversation about how Book reporting doesn’t generate revenue and may have to go away. WAIT! Maybe Book reviews and coverage are one of those things that don’t generate revenue right now, BUT–are trademarks for newspapers and elicit high passion from readers. At XM, we had Opera channels. Low listenership…HIGH passion…AND–it was one of those things that even if people didn’t listen or even like Opera, it was one of those things you had to have for completeness. Maybe Book sections in newspapers are just dated. Not the idea…but the look and feel. Maybe they’re modeled after a book […]
Softplay Buys Kidsbooks
Privately-owned Chicago-based Softplay, a marketer of interactive books and related toys, has purchased Boston children’s book publisher Kidsbooks, on undisclosed terms. Playthings
Sittenfeld's Provocative "American Wife"
Radar has excerpts from Curtis Sittenfeld’s forthcoming novel AMERICAN WIFE, “a thinly veiled novel based on Laura Bush’s life that is sure to send the White House into a fury” as it “mingles real facts and incidents with the author’s imaginative, fanciful, sometimes sexually charged musings. The result is a masterful highbrow-lowbrow mash-up that satisfies as ass-kicking literary fiction and juicy gossip simultaneously.” A number of short excerpts are posted. Radar