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’ […]
eNews
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 […]
eNews: iBookstore Quick Reads; Odyl for Facebook Campaigns; BN Partners With Appcelerator; and More
Apple’s iBookstore has joined Kindle Singles in providing a store-within-the-store for short-form digital book content with Quick Reads, a compendium of short stories, longer pieces of journalism and manuals priced between 99 cents and $4.99. MacWorld To help publishers and authors maximize their interaction on Facebook, Odyl is officially rolling out a platform that will help them do so on a much larger scale. Aside from pulling reviews from Goodreads, administering galley giveaways and making book excerpts available to users who “like” Facebook pages, Odyl says its platform “collects rich audience data specific to titles and readers, providing an invaluable […]
Details on Amazon’s Prime eBooks Benefit Plan
Last week there was a new round of intensification in Amazon’s long-brewing efforts to enlist publisher participation for an ebooks free-access model as part of the benefits package for their Prime members, as we heard from multiple publishers. The WSJ ran with a brief story last night with only modest details, which may have inadvertently given the venture the appearance of broader scope than it has acquired so far. Meanwhile, core trade people we’ve spoken to on background-only have provided a colorful range of metaphors invoking pigs with wings and a frozen underworld–even as some whose businesses focus more on […]