In a status conference Wednesday afternoon that lasted all of five minutes, no decisions were made with respect to the Google Book Settlement, as all parties wanted more time to reach some sort of agreement. Bruce Keller, representing the Authors Guild and the AAP and speaking on behalf of “all parties,” told the court that “the parties are still considering options. They have not made any decisions. Everything being discussed between them is on the table.” Judge Chin set a new hearing date of July 19 at 10:00 AM in response to Keller’s assertion that parties would need an additional […]
eNews
eNews: 3M Invests in txtr; Diesel Allies with E-Reads; More From Eisler
Further underscoring 3M’s commitment to the epublishing space, following of our pre-BEA report of their ambitious new library ebook initiative, the company formally announced an investment in Germany’s txtr. The ereading software company’s ceo Christophe Maire calls it a “considerable investment” and says it “demonstrates that 3M has recognized the growing importance of the eReading market.” He notes that txtr is already a vendor for 3m: “we provide a white label solution to 3M, which will allow them to open up new vertical markets.” Like many others in the space, txtr at one time planned their own reading device, which […]
UK Site Tries to Combine Kickstarter and Byliner Models
At the Hay literary festival over the weekend, writer Justin Pollard, publishing veteran John Mitchinson and Crap Towns author Dan Kieran launched Unbound.co.uk, a site that aims to serve as a mash-up of Kickstarter and Byliner for books. The Kickstarter part is a fan-sourced funding mechanism that solicits pledges to finance proposed, with a roster of benefits for contributions form £10 up to £250 (or the opportunity to bankroll an entire project). The Byliner part is that, once financed, the site also serves as the publishing platform–like it or not, as far as we can tell, and takes 50 percent […]
Agents at BEA: Nothing Is Off the Table
The newsmaking announcements at BEA might have been all about devices and digital, but the agents also showed up to talk about what is going on in their world of rights and royalties, and some interesting tidbits emerged. To start with, if you thought the 25 percent ebook royalty was settled, think again. On Tuesday’s AAR’s Global Publishing Marketplace panel, Jennifer Weltz, partner and rights director at Jean Naggar, stated: “Twenty-five percent shouldn’t be standard in US or anywhere else, we need escalators. When publishers come back to us and say, No, this is standard we can’t give you more, […]
Google Book Engineer Says His Staff Has Grown 50 Percent
Chief Engineer for Google Books James Crawford didn’t reveal much news at his presentation Thursday morning on Seven Years of Google Book Search, but he did mention–in contrast to unsourced allegations on the interwebs recently–that he has grown the engineering team by 50 percent since Google eBooks launched in December. Google has big international hopes that most ebooks they add from around the world will be available worldwide with limited rights issues in most territories (presumably excluding English and Spanish), and Crawford pointed to cases where “the contracts between the authors and publishers are silent or ambiguous on digital rights” as […]
Digital Accelerates At Bloomsbury, Which Announces Digital Drama Library with Faber
Bloomsbury, which is readjusting its fiscal year, reported results for the 14 months ending February 28. Since the publisher already disclosed 12-month results recently, we’ll only delve into the highlights and what’s new. Their ebook sales continue to accelerate. They were £1.5 million for all of 2010, and have now registered £1.1 million for the first two months of 2011. Chief executive Nigel Newton says in the release, “This is an exciting time for Bloomsbury: demand for digital delivery, including e-books, is increasing significantly; it will change the publishing business model creating one worldwide market. The recent organisation change is […]