“It’s just been too quiet,” former HarperCollins ceo Jane Friedman said at a party at her house last night to help launch the Free Speech Leadership Council–which she is chairing–of the National Coalition Against Censorship. “I don’t like being quiet,” Friedman added. “How can you be a publisher and not care about this? Friedman was introduced to the group by Chip Gibson at Random House, and others from book publishing becoming involved include Vicky Wilson, Binky Urban, Peter Workman, Larry Kirshbaum. The event also launched BURN THIS BOOK, an anthology prepared in conjunction with the PEN American Center just published […]
Salinger Stories
A few more bits to share on this case. In reviewing the full complaint filed by JD Salinger’s attorneys seeking to stop publication of JD California’s unauthorized sequel, it is noted that last October Salinger created a literary trust and assigned to it the copyright for all of his works. The true story on “California” remains elusive. Salinger’s attorneys believed him to be living in New York, but the AP contacts him by telephone in Sweden. When they ask “he declined to offer his real name”–but a few days ago he insisted to the Telegraph “My initials really are JD, […]
eNews: Indigo to Launch Their Own Device
CEO of dominant Canadian retailer Indigo Heather Reisman disclosed after a TV interview today that the company is “in final talks with a number of e-book reader manufacturers and will be choosing one to launch as their own in Canada by the end of this year.” Reisman indicated that neither Sony nor Amazon will be their partner.CTV tech blog
eNews: A Little More on Google's Plans
For Google’s planned initiative to sell access to online (and browser-cached) versions of books starting later this year, the company tells the Wall Street Journal they reserve the right to discount ebook prices at their own expense, though publishers will set the list prices. Publishers have told us that the splits Google has been proposing for the direct sale of ebooks more or less mimics the 37/63 split for out-of-print books in the proposed settlement of the Google Book Search lawsuits. But the effort to enable sale through other online retailers that we described on Monday is positioned as requiring […]
eNews: Are You Cool with 6 Machines for Your eBooks?
Following Cool-er’s noisy launch at BEA, we’ve been trying to clarify some of the operational details about the start-up. Their e-store, which claims to have “over 750,000 titles,” is driven by Ingram Digital, at least for the paid downloads. Founder Neil Jones told us he “can’t formally comment on the public domain titles right now” because agreements are still being formalized, and said the same with respect to partnerships with suppliers in other territories. Leaving aside public domain titles, Jones says they have “about 260,000 ebooks” available–but “what is the number of actual of titles is questionable.” That’s because the […]
eNews: Will This "Be" the Solution on Wireless Access?
At BEA we had a chance to check out the BeBook e-reader, produced in Holland and headed for distribution in the US market. CEO Johan Hagenbeuk said that he is having discussions with a number of potential partners, including both major retailers and publishers themselves. While his line of devices offers prices competitive to Cool-er (and less than Sony Reader and Kindle), he’s looking to encourage cellphone-style service models that subsidize the price of the reader in exchange for a contract to buy a certain amount of content. Hagenbeuk suggested that he company is very close to launching a simple […]