Macmillan president Brian Napack addressed Digital Book World this morning on the “the cheery, happy pleasant topic of people stealing your stuff.” He noted, “Piracy is happening. The question is how bad is it in the trade publishing business?” Napack said that “anyone who says that piracy isn’t an issue doesn’t understand,” showing a list of numerous NYT bestsellers, all available on some torrent site for free. Among Macmillan’s own examples, a search of Vuze (“a slick little thing if you want something for free” that searches all the torrent sites) showed 29 places to get pirated Sherrilyn Kenyon books, […]
eNews
From Digital Book World, A New Social Metric to Worry About; Poetry Site Helps Sales
Razorfish executive and author Shiv Singh kicked off the presentations to a full room at the inaugural Digital Book World conference in New York this morning. It’s always interesting for people in the relatively inward-focused book publishing business to hear from outside experts, and yet usually, unless those experts bring some particular understanding of publishing or work hard to modify their pitch to publishers’ complex needs, the advice tends to fall flat. There’s no arguing with Singh’s basic thesis–that consumers now have all the control, and communicating brands to them isn’t as simple as it used be. But many of […]
Today's Amazon Press Release: Exclusive Kindle Book by Paulson Speechwriter
Speechwriter for Henry Paulson when he was secretary of Treasury Stacy Carlson has written a book, YOU, ME, & THE US ECONOMY, that is being published as an ebook only through Rosetta Books, exclusive to Kindle for a year. “A plainspoken look inside the Treasury Department” that “explains the events and issues through a personal narrative,” with a foreword by Paulson.Release Their second release of the day notes that Amazon Encore will publish four entrants from last year’s version of their Breakthrough novel contest–which has yet to create a discernible breakthrough.Release
Now A Way to Vook Yourself
Vook officially announced a new tool that founder Brad Inman has been discussing in other venues, the unfortunately-named MotherVook–intended to help publishers create Vook-style enhanced ebooks at scale. They say the platform includes: database management the multimedia elements in an enhanced ebook (text, pricing, video, links and more); production of single XML doc that feeds across different devices and formats; streamlined text (epub) or word importing; instant preview; and simple insert of assets to edit, preview and create. The company has partnered with TurnHere–Vook founder Brad Inman’s previous start-up–to help provide video for those new enhanced ebooks.
Google Updates: Hachette UK's New Position, and Justice Date
Hachette UK ceo Tim Hely-Hutchinson told agents and authors in a letter that the company will opt in to the revised Google Book Settlement to claim any fees due–but will not make their titles available for display.Bookseller As an update (since we couldn’t locate the correct deadline yesterday), the Justice Department has until February 4 to register their views on the revised settlement with Judge Denny Chin.
eNews: Acer Enters Market; Amazon's New Exclusives; Harper's Inkpop
The world’s second-largest computer maker Acer, confirmed that they will launch an ereader by the end of June. They are targeting “up to five European countries” for initial release, president of IT Products Jim Wong tells Bloomberg. “Amazon, Barnes & Noble; they are U.S.-centric. In Western Europe and Asia-Pacific we have publishers to work with, and most of them are content owners.” Wong indicates they are talking to book, magazine and newspaper publishers about content deals (and they plan an app store, as well.)Bloomberg Today’s Amazon press release notes the exclusive release (for a three-month window) of individual chapters from […]