Crown will release Kitty Kelley’s 544-page OPRAH: A Biography in a promised “first printing in excess of a half-million copies.” The North American laydown will include a simultaneous ebook edition, along with an audio release. Crown says Kelley had 850 interviews with sources for the book, “many of whom have never before spoken for publication about Winfrey.”
Amazon Launches "Active Content" App Program
In the second big pre-tablet announcement this week from Amazon, the company has announced plans to allow the creation of the Kindle version apps, which they are calling “active content,” later this year. For now they are just inviting interested parties to register for a limited beta of the Kindle Developer Kit, which will be available for download sometime next month. Like Apple’s App Store model–and the new self-publishing Kindle royalty option announced yesterday–creators of active content will receive 70 percent of the revenue, minus delivery fees of 15 cents per megabyte. Small apps of less than 1 mb can […]
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More promotions from the Random House publishing group: Junessa Viloria is now an assistant editor at Ballantine; Angela Polidoro is an assistant editor at Bantam; Randall Klein moves up to associate editor at Bantam Dell; and Jessica Sebor is now an assistant editor at Bantam Dell. To clarify yesterday’s report on changes at Harper UK, Lynne Drew will oversee all of the programs within the Harper Fiction division–but not any of the Harper Press fiction lines.
AAP Prepares Guidelines for Meetings with File-Sharing Sites
The AAP’s Online Piracy Working Group is close to finalizing recommendations of best practices to encourage file-sharing sites “to be more proactive to prevent infringements” of books. The group hopes to move these sites beyond simply responding to takedown notices, “to install filters or take other measures to stop unauthorized copies of books from appearing on their services,” the Chronicle of Higher Education reports. The AAP’s Ed McCoyd says they plan to meet with several file-sharing sites over the next few weeks to present those recommendations. Legal director for Wiley Maria Danzilo says “The whole point of these best practices […]
Small Publishers Retain Counsel to Collect Borders Payables
News service DebtWire.com reports via the FT that a group of small publishers has hired the bankruptcy group of Lowenstein Sandler as legal counsel “concerning mounting receivables” owed them by Borders Group. But a spokesperson says Borders “has continued to pay its vendors and is not aware of any material disputes related to its December 2009 payments.” One anonymous executive says “[Borders] have been extending payables… and most publishers have cut back on what they will advance.” The service reports “three major publishers said they received payments in full from Borders for the December period but three smaller firms said […]
BookLocker Settles Amazon POD Lawsuit
BookLocker announced today that they have settled the lawsuit they brought against Amazon over the company’s announced policy, first posted in early 2008, requiring print-on-demand books sold on the site to be printed by Amazon’ facilities “for reasons of efficiency” or sold via their Advantage program. (The signed settlement is dated December 16.) Amazon, while denying the allegations and not admitting any liability, will pay BookLocker’s legal fees of $300,000. On their blog BookLocker says they could have exacted a cash payment but Amazon would not allow them to indicate their intention to donate the funds to charity–nor, they claim, […]