Two months after thriller writer Barry Eisler moved houses to St. Martin’s Press crime imprint Minotaur Books for his next John Rain novel, The Detachment, he reveals in a lengthy online conversation with his friend and fellow writer Joe Konrath that the deal is off. Instead, Eisler will publish the book on his own around mid-June, far sooner than the Spring 2012 publication date scheduled by Minotaur. “I know it’ll seem crazy to a lot of people,” Eisler states, “but based on what’s happening in the industry, and based on the kind of experience writers…are having in self-publishing, I think […]
New Business Models
Google One Pass Takes Direct Hit at Apple By Giving Publishers A Way To Control The Price of Digital Content
As publishers grow increasingly concerned about Apple’s recent restrictions on how digital content that is accessible through iOS apps can be sold, Google conveniently announced its own payment system, One Pass, in which “publishers can maintain direct relationships with their customers and give readers access to digital content across websites and mobile apps.” Readers who purchase content from a One Pass publisher through almost any device they choose can use a single sign-on with an email and password. For publishers, Google touts the ability to customize how and when they charge for content while experimenting with different models to see […]
Amazon Launches First “Singles” List, With Pete Hamill’s Previously Cancelled Immigration Work
Amazon posted their first list of just over 20 Kindle Singles, short nonfiction digital works “typically between 5,000 and 30,000 words.” With no page counts, consistent with Kindle ethos, consumers will have only price (currently ranging from 99 cents to $2.99) and kilobyte counts to estimate how long these works are prior to purchase. Among the titles is a version of Pete Hamill’s piece on immmigration, THEY ARE US, originally intended as a 40,000 to 50,000-word digital original from Little, Brown last fall. Hamill had not delivered as intended, and reportedly backed off the project due to his wife’s illness. […]
eNews: HBG Joins Net Galley; RoyaltyShare Adds Price Monitor; Dzanc’s eBook Club; Scholastic Adds Nintendo Games
– Hachette Book Group is now working with Net Galley to distribute digital galleys and press kits. – Working with HBG in a different context, RoyaltyShare has added a “sales feed price validation” tool to their ebook sales and royalty tracking service. The new addition is particularly useful for agency publishers in order to determine “whether reported eBook transaction prices are accurate” and “allowing them to potentially recoup tens of thousands of dollars of revenue that might otherwise never be identified.” HBG coo Ken Michaels says in the announcement, “The ability to identify pricing anomalies on a transaction-by-transaction basis in […]
Callaway Launches Digital Content Studio with Financing Led by Kleiner, Perkins
With the release of the iPad earlier this year Nicholas Callaway announced he was creating a studio to develop apps and released an app based on his company’s Miss Spider character. That app captivated Apple ceo Steve Jobs enough that he connected venture capitalist John Doerr at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers with Callaway, who today officially announces $6 million in Series A financing led by Kleiner’s iFund. It’s the only second investment from this fund focused on the iOS platform. Founding board member of Google and founder of Sherpalo Ventures Ram Shriram and founder of Farmville-creator Zynga Mark Pincus […]
Right Alongside BN, Kobo Launches Their Newsstand
As further evidence of the coming push to expand options for newspapers and magazines in the growing ereading market, today Kobo follows Barnes & Noble’s planned newsstand with their own offering, live as of today. Their site offers about 30 newspapers and magazines to start, and Kobo executive Michael Tamblyn says “this is just the beginning of an aggressive expansion into newspapers and magazines.” All of the offerings work via their iPad and iPhone apps as well as on the Kobo reader. The Apple apps include images in full-color and the iPad versions have a three-column format “that evokes the […]