The biggest surprise in the lead-up to Book Expo America was news yesterday that author Pat Conroy had to cancel his two planned appearances at the show. Via his agent Marly Rusoff, Conroy communicates that he is recovering from surgery, and “otherwise he would be at BEA, which he has always loved attending. He especially regrets being unable to sign with his daughter, Melissa Conroy, who has her first book out, in which he is a character.” (Her picture book POPPY’S PANTS publishes in September.) Doubleday will still have copies SOUTH OF BROAD, his first novel in 14 years, at […]
Shatzkin's New Big Ideas for Publishing's Future
This morning’s biggest Big Idea presentation came from consultant and publishing theorist Mike Shatzkin, who expanded his previously-presented master thesis that general trade publishing will fade and “the future means ‘vertical’ and ‘community'” to look more broadly at what publishing will look like in 20 years. Perhaps the biggest extrapolation was this: “Something we don’t pay enough attention to is that anybody with a web site is a publisher. Not all publishers are content creators, but they need content. That is the big unfolding opportunity for publishing and the people in it over the net 20 or 30 years.” Put […]
The Ties that Bind: ABA Opening Keynote Session
It took quite a while for the ABA’s opening keynote to get past the preambles and underway. Roughly a half hour into the allotted time, R.J. Julia owner Roxanne Coady explained that the panel’s purpose was “to talk a little bit about the partnership between authors and booksellers – formerly the bedrock of our literary landscape” at a time of “extraordinary disintermediation.” There’s an assumption about independents, she explained, of a “Mom and Pop/Apple Pie theory – that we have to exist”–but she suggested it’s more a matter of the “cute pet theory – we want them around, just not […]
EU to Consider Closer Look at Google Settlement
Germany plans to ask the European Commission to take a closer look at the Google Book Search settlement and the library scanning program, and “France, Austria and the Netherlands also said to be keen to have the issue put on the table.” One European diplomat says there is concern about putting the European digital library Europeana (which presents public domain works only) on an equal footing with Google’s book database. A separate article reports that “EU competitiveness ministers meeting in Brussels tomorrow and Friday are likely to ask the Commission to launch an investigation into the implications of the project […]
Geringer Allies with Egmont USA
Children’s publishing start-up Egmont USA has “formed an alliance” with Laura Geringer Books. Geringer ran her imprint for 17 years at Harper Children’s until leaving the company last August. At the time, Susan Katz said in the memo announcing Geringer’s departure that she “looks forward to having more time to pursue her career as a writer, to devote her energies to the development of a new business with the capability of delivering story content on multiple platforms, and to channel more time into First Book.” Geringer will edit “a select group of titles” for Egmont starting with the fall 20l0 […]
UK eBook Announcements
As part of their Book and Beyond program, Random House UK officially announced the release some of their current bestsellers through Apple’s App Store (while embargoed, the news was already reported by a UK paper.) Developed in partnership with Verlagsgruppe Random House in Germany, each ebook is sold as a standalone app rather than working through a particular reader, and they are priced at 7.49 pounds and up.Release Separately, Penguin UK announced an agreement to make its full catalog of epub titles (“around” 2,000 and growing) available through GoSpoken.com’s platform for mobile devices. And DK just launched their top 10 […]