The Federal Court for the Southern District of New York has referred the new lawsuit by the Authors Guild and others against HathiTrust and associated universities to Judge Denny Chin “as possibly related” to the larger, long-running Google Books lawsuits. Which should put Judge Chin in an even testier mood at tomorrow’s hearing, when the parties address his deadline to get serious about a new settlement or prepare to litigate. In yesterday’s account, we erred in our inference regarding the new suit’s naming regents and trustees for the state universities; these are the normal corporate entities responsible for those institutions’ […]
Archives for September 2011
Bookselling: New and Expanded Locations for Mysterious Galaxy and Greenlight Bookstore; and More
Updating two stories in progress for months, Mysterious Galaxy‘s new store in Redondo Beach, CA opened to the public earlier this week, in advance of its October 9 grand opening. LAT And the expanded Greenlight Bookstore, which added a second space next door to the current shop in Brooklyn’s Fort Green neighborhood that will house offices, more space for events, and a coffee bar, is now up and running. Brooklyn Paper Another Books-A-Million store is closing in Blacksburg, VA, with the last day for the 16,000 square foot store set for September 27. A separate location in Fayetteville, AR will […]
Looking for Facts About Self-Published eBooks
With abundant stories of self-published success via Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing, Barnes & Noble’s PubIt and other outlets–and growing concerns as to whether self-epublishing opportunities and increased acquisitions by Amazon’s own imprints poses a challenge to established publishers–we made self-published ebooks the topic of our latest proprietary consumer survey. As with the insightful look at where Borders customers might take their book-buying dollars, the data was compiled exclusively for Publishers Lunch by Bowker PubTrack, through their regular online survey of book buyers. In this case, answers come only from the 11 percent of people surveyed who bought ebooks during the […]
People, Etc.
Karen Kosztolnyik will join Gallery Books as executive editor on September 19, reporting to Jen Bergstrom. She has been at Grand Central for the past 10 years. Lauren Wein will join Houghton Mifflin Harcourt as senior editor, in their New York office, starting October 3. She has been at Grove/Atlantic. Pamela Cannon has been promoted to executive editor, a full-time position, at Ballantine Bantam Dell (where she has been an editor-at-large). Shannon O’Connor has joined the American Booksellers Association as manager of the ABC Children’s Group. Previously she has worked as children’s book buyer at the Doylestown Bookshop. Starbucks and iTunes recently relaunched […]
Authors Organizations File Fresh Lawsuit Challenging Google Library Scans and Pending “Orphan Works” Access
The Authors Guild filed a fresh lawsuit yesterday in a New York Federal Court that stems from the Google Books library scanning project. In this case, they are suing the university consortium HathiTrust, as well as the regents and trustees of the University of Michigan, the University of California, the University of Wisconsin, Indiana University and Cornell. The Guild is joined by the Australian Society of Authors, UNEQ (a Quebec writers union), seven authors who are on the boards of those organizations, and author Fay Weldon. Like all the legal wrangling over the Google scanning, the case is complicated, and […]
The Promotional Files: Doonesbury Features Short McGinnis Book Quotes
Doonesbury offers a new twist in books excerpts–and controversy–this week. The comic strip is featuring short quotes from Joe McGinniss’s forthcoming book on Sarah Palin, THE ROGUE (with a 9/20 publication date). A chief of staff says “Sarah just isn’t comfortable in the presence of dark-skinned people,” and the head of her security detail as governor says, “You know what she was? A housewife who happened to be governor.” Andrew Sullivan says at The Beast that “McGinniss sent advance copies of his devastating book on Sarah Palin to three people: me, Garry Trudeau and Rosanne Cash. Make of that what […]