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an online newsletter for publishers, authors, book lovers and booksellers

Vol. 8, No. 4   April 2010

Index (scroll down for stories) 

   1. Amazon dumps 4,200 affiliates in Colorado over new tax law
   2. ToW, Anvil to offer graphic novel remainders at Spring Book Show
   3. Bad data from Diamond leads Amazon.com to remove buy buttons
   4. Breaking news from the book barons
   5. Blair memoirs set to net him a five million pound bounty
   6. Biographer says Alice in Wonderland’s Lewis Carroll was not a pedophile
   7. New Obama biography by ‘New Yorker’ editor set for April 6 release
   8. News about bookstores, publishing, marketing and promotion
   9. Books to Movies Department
 10. Books that were basis for new HBO war series “The Pacific”
 11. How bad is it – and what is the book business doing to cope?
 12. Barnes & Noble sales down for quarter ending in January 
 13. Bookstore sales for December and 2009 off less than one percent
 14. CBS unit Simon & Schuster has a less than stellar 2009
 15. Update journalism: Latest skinny on past Southern Review stories
 16. The publishing revolution: News of e-books and other new media
 17. Books overtake games as most popular iPhone apps
 18. Samsung latest to join the e-book reader fray
 19. Read an E-Book Week 2010 is over, but read one anyway!
 20. Macmillan introduces Dynamic Books digital textbook platform
 21. Authors Digital latest to offer  vanity service for audio and e-books
 22. Books in bad taste: Holt kills Hiroshima book over sloppy fact-checking, accuracy
 23. News about self-publishing and vanity presses: Scribd in distribution deal with      Author Solutions
 24. Marketing books: what works and what doesn’t
 25. Interview: Spring Book Show’s May discusses remainders market
 26. Milestones: Records and news of note in book publishing
 27. National Book Critics Circle awards announced
 28. News of chicanery, dishonesty and tort-feasing in the book business
 29. Ruling in Google orphan books case not expected for months
 30. Chuckles: Finding humor amid the stacks and shelves
 31. Shortlist announced for 2010 Diagram Prize for oddest book title
 32. News from trade shows, book fairs and book festivals
 33. Major upcoming trade shows, book fairs and book festivals

1. Amazon dumps 4,200 affiliates in Colorado over new tax law

Amazon.com in early March  notified all of its affiliates in Colorado that it was terminating its relationship with them because of a recently passed state law designed to make online retailers report sales tax on sales in the state.

The Colorado law "requires online retailers to either collect sales tax or share information with the state about all of the purchases made by residents, ostensibly so that it can require those citizens to pay so-called use tax on the purchases."

"I have no idea why Amazon did this," Rebecca Madigan, founder of the Performance Marketing Alliance, which represents affiliates, told the Wall Street Journal. "A lot of people are devastated because overnight their affiliate revenue from Amazon has dried up." She added that as of 2008, the latest data available, there were 4,200 affiliates in Colorado, who earned about $37.5 million, with the average affiliate grossing about $8,900 in annual revenue.

The Journal quoted Colorado Governor Bill Ritter as saying, "Amazon has taken a disappointing - and completely unjustified - step of ending its relationship with associates. While Amazon is blaming a new state law for its action, the fact is that Amazon is simply trying to avoid compliance with Colorado law and is unfairly punishing Colorado businesses in the process."

Nineteen Colorado booksellers - along with the American Booksellers Association (ABA) and Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association (MBPIA) - wrote to Governor Bill Ritter to thank him for publicly criticizing Amazon's decision and urge his continued support of HB10-1193 as pressure from Republican legislators grows against the measure.

The letter to the governor argued that Amazon's actions "are nothing short of outrageous coming after the state's good faith efforts to fashion a compromise that sought to take into account the affiliates' concerns."

Bookselling This Week noted that Colorado's sales tax bill is unlike e-fairness laws passed in other states because it "only asks out-of-state retailers that do not collect and remit sales tax to inform residents of the amount of use tax that they owe for online purchases and to provide year-end statements to the Colorado Revenue Department."

"The fact that Amazon refuses to comply with this law is a clear indication that the retailing giant is only interested in maintaining its significant competitive advantage over the bricks-and-mortar retailers in the state - and that it is more than willing to use its online affiliates as pawns to do so," said ABA CEO Oren Teicher.

2. ToW, Anvil Brokers to offer graphic novels at Spring Book Show

While there were isolated graphic novel remainder sales at the Spring Book show prior to 2008, it was not until that year that Diamond Book Distribution moved into the remainder business and took a table at the Spring Book Show, the largest remainder show in the South, where it sold anime, manga and graphic novel remainders. John Shableski, representing Diamond, sold some 50 mixed skids of the popular medium in the first few hours of the 2008 show, his entire inventory.

Among the vendors that will be offering graphic novels at Spring Book Show 2010, to be held at the Cobb Galleria Center in north Atlanta March 26-28, are Tales of Wonder and Anvil Brokers.

TalesofWonder.com, an 11-year-old online retailer of graphic novels, followed Diamond’s lead and set up a separate remainder operation just for graphic novels, ToWDistribution.com. The two share staff, office space and a warehouse in Buford, Ga., 25 miles north of Atlanta, but have separate online presences.

Tales of Wonder president Joe Hovorka sees it as a natural progression. He was quoted recently in Publishers Weekly saying, “The remainder business grew out of the retail,” adding “we continue to grow our retail business every year.”

In the spring of  2009, after amassing  800 titles from Dark Horse, Marvel, Top Shelf and Chronicle, ToWDistribution.com took a table at the Spring Book Show. ToW will be back merchandising its wares with a table at Spring Book Show 2010.

Also vending graphic novels at Spring Book Show 2010 will be Anvil Brokers of Tucker, Ga., in the Atlanta suburbs. Anvil is a broker of mixed skids, including skids of graphic novels and comic books.

“At Spring Book Show 2010, we’ll be emphasizing remainder product from Jack Lake Productions of Canada,” said Anvil President Noel Griese. “Jack Lake is the exclusive licensee of the old Classic Illustrated comics line of 170 classics such as ‘The War of the Worlds’ by H.G. Wells. Jack Lake is also distributing the Classics Illustrated Junior line of fairy tales such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.’”

3. Bad data from Diamond leads Amazon.com to remove buy buttons

It started with a large number of graphic novels and comics being entered into the Amazon.com online database at ridiculously low prices, led to a number of buyers ordering at the ridiculously low prices and ultimately, to Amazon.com removing the buy buttons for all the graphic novels and comics distributed by Diamond Comics Distributors, the big kid on the block when it comes to distributing comics and graphic novels.

According to an article by Calvin Reid in Publishers Weekly on March 10,

Amazon.com was forced to remove the buy buttons from all publications distributed by Diamond. Graphic novels from Marvel, IDW, Dark Horse, Archaia, Image Comics, Top Shelf and others could temporarily not be purchased on Amazon.com except through resellers, until the glitch was corrected.
According to sources. Amazon has to do an audit to figure out which customers got books and at what prices. While the situation is temporary, "there is no timetable for when this will be completed." The buttons were still off on March 11.

Amazon.com spokesperson Drew Herdener said the company did not have sufficient inventory to fulfill all the orders placed for the Diamond publications before the buttons were removed.  " These customers will receive a $25 gift certificate for the inconvenience and misunderstanding," he said.
While neither Amazon nor Diamond commented officially on the cause of the pricing snafu, there has been speculation that the glitch was caused by erroneous data entry by Diamond Book Distributors, the trade book unit of Diamond Comics Distributors.

The removal of buy buttons on Diamond-distributed titles seems to confirm that scenario. Graphic novel titles distributed by Random House, Simon & Schuster, HarperColllins, FSG and W.W. Norton continued to be available for sale on Amazon.com.
There are unconfirmed reports that the problem might be spreading to certain graphic novel listings at Barnes&Noble.com.

4. Breaking news from the book barons

Ingram has teamed up its MyLibrary e-content aggregation platform with the Department of Defense to offer audiobooks to military service members and their dependents.

5. Blair memoirs set to net him a five million pound bounty

Random House, which acquired the rights in 2007,  will publish former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's book Tony Blair: The Journey this September, via Hutchinson in the UK and Knopf and Knopf Canada in North America.

Random UK CEO Gail Rebuck promises that "his book is frank, open, revealing, and written in an intimate and accessible style. As an account of the nature and uses of power, it will have a readership that extends well beyond politics, to all those who want to understand the challenge of leadership in today's world."

While the prospect of publication has so far attracted little critical attention in the U.S., the British press has been sniping at the price and the profit the former British PM will pocket well in advance of publication.

According to the UK press, Blair is set to rake in up to five million pounds by publishing the memoirs of his stint in 10 Downing Street.

The book  which will cost 25 pounds in the UK, is predicted to be the biggest-selling political autobiography of the year  despite Blair's increasingly tarnished reputation.

Blair will embark on an international publicity tour to promote the book this September.

The book's publication, and hefty price tag, has also led to accusations that Blair is yet again using his time as prime minister to make more money.

Tory MP Nigel Evans said: "This book should really be called ‘The Journey To The Bank.’ There has never been a politician more dedicated to filling his own coffers than Tony Blair."

Political commentator Iain Dale, publisher of Total Politics magazine, described the cover of the book as "truly dreadful" and more fitting for a "has been soap star."

"My first thought was to wonder if it's being sponsored by Lloyds Bank. If I had been Prime Minister for 10 years I think I might want a cover for my memoirs, which exuded just a tad more gravitas. The open necked 'I'm a normal kinda guy' look doesn't work on a political memoir," The Daily Express quoted Dale as saying.

Because the book is being published in the run-up to elections in Great Britain, it is assumed that Blair has decided his labor Party will be defeated in the election.

6. Biographer says ‘Alice in Wonderland’s’ Carroll was not a pedophile

“Alice's Adventures in Wonderland,” a movie directed by Tim Burton and starring Mia Wasikowska as Alice and Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, opened on March 5.

A variety of editions of the classic tale by Lewis Carroll are available for those who would rather read the book than see a movie.

For those interested in the history of the book, The Mystery of Lewis Carroll: Discovering the Whimsical, Thoughtful, and Sometimes Lonely Man Who Created “Alice in Wonderland” by Jenny Woolf (St. Martin’s Press, February 2010, $27.99) will provide plenty of background. It relies on new sources and sheds new light on rumors about the author.

Lewis Carroll is the nom de plume of mathematician and author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.

It’s long been rumored that Dodgson was in love with 11-year-old Alice Liddell, who inspired his Alice in Wonderland. She was the daughter of his dean at Oxford.

Woolf uses Carroll’s accounts ledger and his unpublished correspondence with Alice Liddell’s family to flesh out her book.

Woolf tries to dispel some of the worst rumors about Carroll - that he was repressed, in love with adolescent girls and had affairs with married women. She covers his love of photography and penchant for taking nude photographs of the children of friends - a common practice during the Victorian age rather than an indication of pedophilia. There’s no evidence that he harmed any children, although some say he wanted to marry 11-year-old Alice Liddell. Four lost volumes of his 13-volume personal diaries might tell more about that rumor, if they’re ever found.

Woolf found Dodgson’s personal bank account, forgotten and unnoticed in an archive for over a hundred years. Once transcribed and interpreted, it revealed much about him.

Woolf uses other documents and family letters from archives all over the world to piece together Carroll’s life.

“Some of them I visited in person, others list their holdings online and researchers can buy photocopies of relevant documents,” says Woolf.

“I read all the biographies, plus any monographs, studies, and magazine articles, and all the original documents I could find which had not been published,” says Woolf. “I also consulted letters, published and unpublished, and the nine existing volumes of his diary. In short, a lot of work. I wanted to be sure I had seen as much as possible so I could put together my own impression of this intriguing man.”

The BBC produced a half hour program about Woolf’s discovery of Carroll’s personal bank account.

The original publisher of the book is Haus in the UK. St. Martin’s bought the rights from them.

7. New Obama biography by ‘New Yorker’ editor set for April 6 release

A new biography of President Barack Obama by New Yorker editor David Remnick will be released on April 6 in print, audio and e-book versions. Remnick won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for Lenin’s Tomb, about the Soviet Union's collapse, and also wrote King of the World about boxer Muhammad Ali.

Publisher Knopf Doubleday says the book is based on hundreds of interviews with relatives, friends, mentors, donors and rivals.

Obama has been taking his lumps in Congress over health care, and some Democratic candidates are distancing themselves from his policies.

In the Prologue to The Bridge, Obama, who has just announced his candidacy, goes to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., to pay homage to the civil-rights generation, the “Moses generation,” and declares himself the leader of the new generation, the “Joshua generation.”

Sonny Mehta, chairman of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, said in a news release about the book: “Obama’s election as President was based less on policy prescriptions than on a sense of his character and biography. The Bridge reveals not only his character, but also his trials, motivations and perspectives in a way that a memoir, even a remarkable one, cannot.”

8. News about bookstores, publishing, marketing and promotion

John Gray, author of the best-selling Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus series, will self-publish his next book on May 1 through his Mind Publishing, Inc., company.  Called Venus on Fire, Mars on Ice: Hormonal Balance - The Key to Life, Love & Energy, it will be distributed by Greenleaf Book Group.

9. Books to Movies Department

“Shutter Island,” a motion picture directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, took in an estimated $40.2 million over its first weekend in theaters, making it the No. 1 movie for the period, according to the Wall Street Journal. The movie is based on a novel by Dennis Lehane (Harper, $7.99). In January, Lehane and Christian de Metter published a graphic novel version of the book (Morrow, $21.99)… ABC Family has picked up the network rights to Tim Burton's “Alice in Wonderland” and has also acquired the rights to “The Blind Side,” the film adapted from Michael Lewis's bestseller. “The Blind Side” will make its network premiere in 2012. "Feature films are an integral part of the formula for a successful cable service, and ABC Family has created a terrific destination where Warner Bros. movies have thrived," said Warner Bros. Domestic TV Distribution President Ken Werner.

10. Books that were basis for new HBO war series “The Pacific”

A new 10-part miniseries “The Pacific” began airing on HBO on March 14.

“The Pacific” is based on the memoirs of three Marines.

The published memoirs are With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa by Eugene B. Sledge (Ballantine/Presidio, $16) and Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific by Robert Leckie (Bantam, $16).

“The Pacific” miniseries also uses material from: Iwo Jima: Red Blood, Black Sand - Pacific Apocalypse by Charles W. Tatum and China Marine: An Infantryman's Life After World War II by Eugene B. Sledge (Oxford University Press, $17.95).

A companion volume has been issued, The Pacific: Hell Was an Ocean Away (NAL, $26.95) by Hugh Ambrose, a consultant to the miniseries and son of Stephen Ambrose.

In addition, War in the Pacific: 1941–1945 by Richard Overy (Osprey, $45) features a foreword by Dale Dye, senior military adviser to “The Pacific” series. Osprey has also issued in paperback The Pacific War: From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima, edited by Daniel Marston ($19.95), originally published in 2005.

11. How bad is it – and what is the book business doing to cope?

The U.S. and the U.K. sold fewer books last year than in 2008, but retailers in other English-language markets, including Australia, Ireland and South Africa, sold more titles than in the previous year, according to The Bookseller, quoting Nielsen BookScan figures. Where sales dropped, the steepest declines were in trade nonfiction. U.S. retailers, measured by Nielsen BookScan, had the biggest decline, with sales down 3.3 percent, while the U.K. dropped 0.5 percent. Australia had the biggest gain, with book sales up 5.8 percent… Borders Group is asking lenders to extend a $1.125-billion loan due July 2011. Loan holders have responded by demanding that the company repay some of the $360 million outstanding on the loan, the Financial Times reported. The Bank of America has approached investors seeking interest in a new $100-million debt or stock offering which would help Borders meet the demand. The bank asserted that were Borders to declare bankruptcy, lenders should be covered, in part based on "historical liquidation values for book retailers."

12. Barnes & Noble sales down for quarter ending in January  

Total sales at Barnes & Noble  in the third quarter ended Jan. 30 rose 33 percent to $2.2 billion, but that included sales of $566 million at the B&N College Bookstore division added since the third quarter of last year.

Net income was $80.4 million, down less than one percent from the same period last year.

The addition of College Bookstore sales makes comparisons between the two fiscal years deceptive. During the third quarter, Barnes & Noble store sales fell 4.7 percent to $1.4 billion and sales at stores open at least a year fell 5.5 percent. Sales at B&N College stores open at least a year fell 1.3 percent.
B&N.com sales, however, rose 32 percent to $210 million.

CEO Steve Riggio attributed much of the online sales gain to the launch of the nook e-reader, which began shipping in the middle of the quarter.

B&N said that bestselling titles during the quarter included John Grisham's Ford Country, Greg Mortenson's Stones into School, Elizabeth Gilbert's Committed, Andre Agassi's Open and Nicholas Sparks's Last Song.

During the quarter, BN opened three stores and closed nine, Dalton closed 46 locations and BN College opened three stores.

13. Bookstore sales for December and 2009 off less than one percent

December bookstore sales fell 0.6 percent, to $2.03 billion, compared to December 2008, according to preliminary estimates from the Census Bureau. For the year, total bookstore sales fell 0.8 percent, to $16.6 billion.

14. CBS unit Simon & Schuster has a less than stellar 2009

Simon & Schuster, the book publishing arm of CBS, reported sales of $220 million in the fourth quarter of 2009, a 10 percent drop from the previous year, and profits of $13.6 million, more than half the $28.5 million earned in 2008.

For the full fiscal year, sales of $793.5 million declined 7.5 percent compared to a year ago, and profit was $50.2 million, a 57 percent drop from 2008.

The company’s best-sellers in the fourth quarter included Under the Dome by Stephen King and It's Your Time by Joel Osteen. For the full year 2009, Glenn Beck's Arguing with Idiots led the list.

The publishing company's hoped-for "big holiday rebound" didn't come to fruition. Some titles like Audrey Niffenegger's Her Fearful Symmetry came nowhere close to earning out the reported $5 million that imprint Scribner paid for it.
E-books accounted for four percent of S&S's total book sales.

15. Update journalism: Latest skinny on past Southern Review stories

Reed Business Information has sold Library Journal and School Library Journal to Media Source, Dublin, Ohio, which owns the Horn Book and Junior Library Guild. Ron Shank, group publisher of Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and School LibraryJournal, and Brian Kenney, editorial director of the three publications, are staying with the Library magazines. As a result, at Publishers Weekly, associate publisher Cevin Bryerman has become publisher, and Jim Milliot and Michael Coffey have become co-editorial directors. Milliot has been business and news director and Coffey has been executive managing editor.

16. The publishing revolution: News of e-books and other new media

The New York Times is planning to spin off its Book Review section as a separate e-publication for e-readers, New York Times Marketing Director James Dunn said at a journalism symposium in Columbia, Mo. Within the next few weeks, it will be published first for Sony, then for Kindle and Nook e-readers. Dunn said that the paper would be looking at other sections to see what might best be spun off as further separate publications… Penguin USA says its e-book sales rose by more than 300 percent in 2009, and as projected, they had 10,000 titles available electronically by the end of the year... On March 2, Penguin Group CEO John Makinson at a conference in London presented more of the company's vision of how to present books on the iPad platform. Their vision is that they "will be embedding streaming audio, video and gaming into everything that we do." That implies Penguin will foresake epub, which "is designed for narrative text but not this cool stuff that we're talking about now" and "for the time being at least we'll be creating a lot of our content as applications"… Credit Suisse Group analysts predict that Amazon's share of e-book sales will drop to 72 percent this year, down from 90 percent in 2009, as competition from Apple's iPad and Google increases. Analysts Spencer Wang, Kenneth Sena and John Blackledge predict Amazon "may boost digital book sales by 83 percent this year to $248 million from $135 million last year.... By 2015, those sales should reach $775 million for a market share of 35 percent. We envision a scenario where Apple, Amazon and Google eventually split the market,"  the analysts said. They also anticipate that digital sales will represent about three percent of total book sales in 2010, and grow to 20 percent of the book market by 2015… The Credit Suisse Group analysts differ with other, more accepted data ion the e-book market. Goldman Sachs' proprietary survey in early February found that Kindle owners comprised 63 percent of e-reader owners, and estimated that six percent of regular book readers own a device. A much more thoroughly documented report from Lazard in January estimated an installed e-reader base of four percent. Lazard estimated Kindle e-book sales alone for 2009 at $194 million… Some 65,000 rare first editions of 19th-century fiction from the British Library will be offered this spring for free download. In addition to "classic titles by famous 19th Century authors, many of the downmarket books known as ‘penny dreadfuls’ will also be made available to the public, including Black Bess by Edward Viles and The Dark Woman by J.M. Rymer,” according to the Telegraph. "Freeing historic books from the shelves has the potential to revolutionize access to the world’s greatest library resources," said Lynne Brindley, chief executive of the British Library.

17. Books overtake games as most popular iPhone apps

In what is predicted to be a pivotal year for e-books, with next month's iPad launch, the number of books available as iPhone apps now exceeds the number of games

According to data released earlier this month by the mobile phone advertising company Mobclix, there are more than 27,000 books now available as apps. Games lag behind, with 25,400 published this year, followed by entertainment, education and travel.

It's a trend that seems to be gathering momentum, with the number of book apps outnumbering games almost two to one over the past month. Next month's launch of the iPad, Apple's new tablet reader, alongside a dedicated book store, is set to accelerate the shift to electronic reading still further.

"The iPhone has always been perceived as a games-centric device, said Canongate's digital editor, Dan Franklin, "so the idea that books are outranking games is very exciting."

Franklin, who moved into digital publishing a year ago, said that his first thought on getting the job was, "When is Apple going to do something?" because "they have form.”  A move from Apple into the e-book market will "bring new people to reading like they have brought new people to music with the iTunes store,” he added.

"It's a very exciting time," agreed Penguin's digital publisher, Jeremy Ettinghausen. "It's very exciting that people are using iPhones to read books."

18. Samsung latest to join the e-book reader fray

Samsung is introducing a $299 Samsung eReader, and has announced "a relationship with Barnes & Noble which allows the eReader to access B&N's arsenal of more than a million e-books and e-magazines as well as access to Google Books," says PC World.

The new device allows users to take notes in the margins and share content with other Samsung eReaders.

Kevin Frain, executive v-p of e-commerce operations at B&N, did not see a conflict with its own  Nook, saying, "We want to enable e-reading everywhere."

The Samsung eReader will be available soon at major retailers, but will not be sold at B&N's stores.

19. Read an E-Book Week 2010 is over, but read one anyway!

Read an E-Book Week 2010 was held March 7-13 Rita Toews is the founder of the pseudo-event designed to promote e-books.

On Smashwords, over 3,000 authors participated in the promotional event.  Blio, QBook, Diesel E-Books and Sylvan Dell Publishing were among the participants.

For more information: www.ebookweek.com.

20. Macmillan introduces Dynamic Books digital textbook platform

Macmillan Publishing has unveiled Dynamic Books, a new digital publishing platform and line of interactive books designed to combat the high price of textbooks and the threat of digital piracy.
Using the new technology, professors can customize content and present it for download, online access or print-on-demand editions.

The new line, initially offering 20 titles, will be launched Aug. 1 and will grow rapidly to 100 titles or more.

A $150 traditional print textbook will cost about $47 for the digital Dynamic Book edition. Students can access the Dynamic edition online or download it to a laptop, an iPhone or to Apple's iPad.

The books will be available directly from Macmillan and the Dynamic Books Web site and through college bookstores. Students can store their books in an online library offered by the publisher.
Dynamic Books, a subsidiary of Macmillan, has been in development for two years together with digital textbook publisher Vital Source and its sister company, Ingram’s Lightning Source.

Dynamic Books’ interactive and downloadable textbooks will enable individual professors to modify, delete, or add text, comments, or even video and audio. Also, professors can keep their customized versions as long as they like.

Professors whose revisions are included in official updates will be eligible to receive a $1 royalty when texts with their additions are purchased. Dynamic Books will also allow students to print out a limited number of pages or purchase a POD version of the Dynamic Book with their professor's customized comments in a black and white bound print edition for half the print price or a full color version for the full print textbook price.

Macmillan will initially offer its own books in the Dynamic Book platform, but the company plans to seek other publishers to use the platform. The company says the new platform may change the way textbooks are conceived and written.

The web site Resource Shelf reports, however, that the system may frustrate some users because such digital platforms have their own interfaces and formats that the companies control. Advanced e-textbooks from one company are not compatible with other companies’ platforms, and each system has its own quirks and a learning curve for students and professors. (Source: Authorlink)

21. Authors Digital latest to offer  vanity service for audio and e-books

Authors Digital has announced a new audio book publishing service permitting authors to create and generate sales from digital books and e-books.

Authors Digital was founded by David Wolf, an award-winning audio and music producer with over 25 years of experience in film, radio and television.

“A 2009 Audio Publishers Association Survey estimates, the total size of the audio book industry, based on the dollars spent by consumers and libraries, is close to $1 billion,” notes Wolf.

Authors Digital, in cooperation with Ellen Reid at Book Shepparding and narration recording with Michelle Spencer, is in post production of the latest novel from Louise Gaylord entitled Julia Fairchild.

Also in production are The Wisdom of Leadership by Per Winblad, narrated by Laren Bright, How to Prosper in the Age of Obamanomics, by Howard Ruff, narrated by Matt Rixx, and Put Your Best Book Forward by Ellen Reid, narrated by the author.

22. Books in bad taste: Holt kills Hiroshima book over sloppy fact-checking, accuracy

The Henry Holt imprint of Macmillan will no longer "print, correct or ship" copies of The Last Train from Hiroshima, a book by Charles Pellegrino that got rave reviews from the New York Times and Publishers Weekly, but was subsequently found to contain egregious errors.

The publisher is offering full credit to wholesalers and retailers who return the book. The Last Train had a print run of 18,000 copies, with about 7,000 of them sold when the ruckus began, according to Nielsen BookScan, which accounts for about 75 percent of retail book sales.

Holt said it will "issue full credit to wholesalers and retailers who wish to return the book. Consumers who seek a refund should return to the retailer from whom they purchased the book."

Published Jan. 19, the book was dogged by charges that some of the material came from a former serviceman who did not fly on the Enola Gay, as he had claimed.

The late Joseph Fuoco allegedly told Pellegrino, who did not check the claim, that he was a last-minute substitute for another flight engineer on the Enola Gay, that an accident with the bomb had killed a young scientist and that the bomb had been damaged so much that its destructive power was cut in half - all claims that have been widely refuted in earlier sources, and which any careful historian would have discovered.

Publisher Steve Rubin said of the early allegations that, "Despite his due diligence (Pellegrino) was deceived by one of his sources; he and we will do everything in our power to set the historical record straight as soon as possible. The total changes will amount to less than five pages of text and one illustration."

One can only wonder why the mistakes were made, given that many secondary sources have long ago accurately listed the crew of the Enola Gay and other B-29s involved in the historic Hiroshima mission.
The publisher said that Pellegrino had "other verifiable sources" besides Pellegrino who "confirm that the bomb was of an unstable design, one that was never used again, but because all of Mr. (Fuoco's) assertions must now be called into question…"

Given the vast amount of information that exists about the bombing of Hiroshima, it is also of interest that fact-checkers at the publisher and the supposedly expert reviewers at the New York Times and Publishers Weekly failed to detect any of the errors.

More recently, new questions arose about whether two men mentioned in the book even existed.
Pellegrino told the New York Times that he had changed the name of one of the characters at issue, which led to confusion.

"The author of any work of nonfiction must stand behind its content," Holt said in a news release announcing that it was pulling the book. "We must rely on our authors to answer questions that may arise as to the accuracy of their work and reliability of their sources. Unfortunately, Mr. Pellegrino was not able to answer the additional questions that have arisen about his book to our satisfaction."

In addition, Pellegrino's own background has been questioned. He claims to have a Ph.D. from Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, but the school said he does not have a Ph.D. from it. Pellegrino told the Times that the university had rescinded his Ph.D. "because of a disagreement over evolutionary theory."

Filmmaker James Cameron, who consulted Pellegrino in the making of the hit movie “Avatar,” had bought the film rights to Last Train. The recent revelations have made it unlikely that Cameron, director of “Titanic” and the “Terminator” movies in addition to “Avatar,” will make a movie based on the book.

While Barnes & Noble said it was pulling and returning all of its copies, the book was still selling well on Amazon. A week after the ruckus began, the book was at No. 96 on Amazon, with used copies of the hardback selling for considerably more than new copies.

Author Pellegrino, meanwhile, said he would correct errors and issue a new edition himself.

Pellegrino’s previous works include Return to Sodom and Gomorrah (1995) and Her Name, "Titanic": The Untold Story of the Sinking and Finding of the Unsinkable Ship (1990).

23. News about self-publishing and vanity presses: Scribd in distribution deal with Author Solutions

Author Solutions in February announced a distribution deal with social publishing startup Scribd.

Under the agreement, all new ASI titles published through the AuthorHouse, iUniverse, Trafford Publishing and Xlibris vanity press operations will be made available for purchase through the Scribd website.

In addition, a portion of ASI’s “backlist” of more than 120,000 titles will be put up for sale on Scribd.

Author Solutions said in a press release that the Scribd portal currently attracts over 50 million users per month.

Under terms of the agreement with Scribd, authors will receive 50 percent of the net sales of their titles through the startup’s social platform. A default price of $9.99 will be set for each title, but authors will have the opportunity to set their own prices.

Distribution to Scribd will be included as a free service for all new ASI titles.

24. Marketing books: what works and what doesn’t

Author J.A. Konrath continues his series of posts reporting on his progress selling some of his own books on the Kindle. "I'm currently selling $1.99 e-books at the rate of 170 per day. That means I'm earning around $120 per day just sitting on my butt. If this trend continues as-is, I'll earn $43,800 this year on previously published short stories and novels that NY print publishing rejected. But I don't expect this trend to continue as-is. I expect it to explode," when Amazon doubles the royalty for such projects.

25. Interview: Spring Book Show’s May discusses remainders market

Far more books are sold at a discount from retail than are sold at the suggested cover price - and a large percentage of the discounted books end up in the remainder market.

Knoxville's Larry May, founder of the Spring Book Show, scheduled for the Cobb Galleria Centre in North Atlanta on March 26-28, knows the remainder business. Formerly an executive with the 100-store Book Warehouse chain that specialized in remainders, he founded Atlanta's Spring Book Show 12 years ago. Following is what he told the Southern Review in an interview.

Q. What kind of booksellers and books are found at the Spring Book Show?

A. (Larry May) We specialize in remainders, hurts, returns, promotional and white sales. We also have sidelines - calendars, reading glasses, music (CDs), cards, stationery, pens and other writing instruments. There are a few close-out companies that will sell anything that they think someone will buy at a discount -  package deals, audio books, videos, you name it.

Q. How many book buyers will be at the show this year?

A. Total show attendance should be around 800 to 1,000. About  400 of those will be serious buyers. Vendors account for 500 booth spaces.

Q. How far do your book buyers come?

A. So far, we have buyers coming from Japan, Korea Great Britain, Canada, Nigeria, Ireland, France and Australia. By the time the show opens, we should add a few more countries.

Q. Can you name a few of the sellers who we can expect to see there?

A. Among the vendors would be A1 Overstock, Book Country Clearing House, Book Depot, Book$mart, Daedalus, Fairmount Books, SAS and Associates, S & L Sales, Strictly by-the Book, Texas Bookman, Thomas Nelson Bargain Books and World Publications - to mention a few.

Q. What are the origins of the show?

A. The show grew out of a cooperative called Affiliated Value Booksellers. There were about 40 members who formed a buying group and would have a conference twice a year. At one of the meetings, we would invite vendors to come to the hotel and display their product to the members of the group - it was a "member only" showing. In the mid-90s, the group disbanded and I took the small show and built it into a bigger one.

Q. Do particular genres do better than others once they become remainders?

A. I would say that it exactly mirrors the general trade book industry. What sells well in the general trade industry sells well at our show. Of course, the reason we have a show is because the publisher didn't sell enough of something, overprinted, allowed returns or they need to turn books into cash. I must say this about the book industry, I don't care how good an author is - their books will end up being handled somewhere along the line by one of our vendors. It is inevitable. We feel that our vendors, our show, our industry gives the book additional "lives."

Q. What's the state of the remainder book industry at the moment?

A. The remainder business has benefited from the economic recession. Consumers not only have less dollars to spend on books and other entertainment – they’ve also become accustomed to discounted prices for books. Retailers like Amazon.com, Walmart and Target have engaged in price wars that brought down the price of hardcover best-sellers. In order to compete, both independent bookstores and some of the chain stores have become more reliant than ever on remainders, where the markup is usually higher than it is on newly issued books from publishers.

Q. What does the internet do for the remainder book industry?

A. The innovative remainder dealers have made good use of the internet. They use it to sell wholesale, business to business, and to sell retail, business to consumer. But perhaps the major development has been the entry of many small players into the remainder business. There are literally thousands of people now who have entered the book retailing business by selling remainders through Amazon.com stores, on eBay and via other Internet outlets.

26. Milestones: Records and news of note in book publishing

Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815 (Oxford University Press) by Gordon S. Wood has won the American History Book Prize, sponsored by the New-York Historical Society, according to the New York Times. The prize comes with a $50,000 award, an engraved medal and the title of the American Historian Laureate. Wood is a professor emeritus at Brown University… Just days after a copy of the 1938  Action Comics in which Superman debuted set a new record by selling for $1 million, a 1939 copy of Detective Comics No. 27 in which Batman debuted sold at auction for $1,075,500, the Washington Post reported… Sandy Moore, vice president of audio production at Simon & Schuster Audio, retired on March 1 after 25 years with the division since its founding in 1984. Christopher Lynch writes, "her vision for how an audiobook should sound literally shaped an industry, and her ability to adapt to the changing times has kept S&S as the standard bearer for quality audio production as we move quickly into the digital age."  Elisa Shokoff, also an S&S veteran, has taken over Moore's position… Bob Hawkins Sr., founder of Harvest House Publishers, has died of Parkinson’s disease. He was 87. In 1974, Hawkins at the age of 52 founded the business in Irvine, Calif., based on his belief that books could effectively spread a Christian message. The business began small, with Hawkins working out of his garage and a small office. After two years, the publishing company, which now employs about 100 people, had four books sell more than 100,000 copies. In 1981, for quality of life reasons, Hawkins moved the company to Eugene, Ore. It now publishes more than 160 titles each year and has a backlist of more than 700 books. Its Web site lists at least 15 best-sellers.

27. National Book Critics Circle awards announced

The winners of the National Book Critics Circle Awards were presented on March 11. The winners:

Fiction: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (Henry Holt)

General Nonfiction: The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes (Pantheon)

Biography: Cheever: A Life by Blake Bailey (Knopf)

Autobiography: Somewhere Towards the End by Diana Athill (Norton)

Poetry: Versed by Rae Armantrout (Wesleyan University Press)

Criticism: Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays by Eula Bliss (Graywolf)

28. News of chicanery, dishonesty and tort-feasing in the book business

J.K. Rowling's name has been added to a lawsuit that alleges she stole ideas for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire from a 1987 book, The Adventures of Willy the Wizard-No. 1 Livid Land by the late Adrian Jacobs. The Associated Press reported that Jacobs's estate "also claims that many other ideas from Willy the Wizard were copied into the Harry Potter books."
Although the lawsuit was filed last June against Bloomsbury Publishing, Rowling's name was added more recently when it was discovered that "the statute of limitations to sue her had not run out, as previously thought," the AP reported. Rowling responded by calling the accusations "unfounded" and "absurd," adding that her lawyers will apply to the court for a ruling that the claim is without merit and should be dismissed, the New York Times reported. "I am saddened that yet another claim has been made that I have taken material from another source to write Harry," said Rowling. "The fact is I had never heard of the author or the book before the first accusation by those connected to the author's estate in 2004; I have certainly never read the book. The claims that are made are not only unfounded but absurd."

29. Ruling in Google orphan books case not expected for months

At a long-anticipated hearing on Feb. 18 on the Google Book settlement, U.S. District Court Judge Denny Chin put lawyers who reached the $125 million pre-hearing agreement on the defensive. When the lawyers who completed revisions to the deal took their turn to speak, Chin asked why the settlement gave Google publishing rights well into the future rather than merely rectifying any harm that led authors and publishers to sue it five years ago," the Associated Press reported.

Chin did not offer an immediate ruling, and is not expected to do so for several months.

"Usually it's a release of claims based on what's happened in the past," Chin said to Michael J. Boni, a lawyer for authors. "Usually you don't have a release of claims based on future conduct. Why is this case different?" The judge suggested "it seemed akin to a settlement in a discrimination action containing wording that says: 'I'm releasing you now from discriminating against me in the future.' "
Some highlights from the testimony, as reported by the AP:

U.S. Deputy Assistant Attorney General William F. Cavanaugh said Google had used the settlement to give it rights it never negotiated for, "essentially rewriting people's contracts.... It produces benefits to Google that Google could not achieve in the marketplace because of the existence of orphan works."

Attorney Daralyn J. Durie, speaking for Google Inc., said provisions of the deal requiring authors to opt-out if they don't want their books scanned rather than requiring Google to first get each rightholder's approval was not an issue the company could be flexible on.

A lawyer for Sony Corp., which makes e-book readers, said the company supports Google's effort because it would promote competition. But an attorney for Microsoft Corp. complained that it would give Google an unfair advantage.

One speaker supporting the settlement, Lateef Mtima, director of the Institute of Intellectual Property and Social Justice at Howard University, said it "would aid in the 'development of a thriving, vibrant culture,'" the New York Times wrote.

Opponents of the deal, however, also pointed out that Google would have the right to scan and sell orphan works, and Hadrian Katz, a lawyer for the Internet Archive, a nonprofit group that is scanning books for its own digitization project, said, "You can’t settle a claim for copyright infringement by authorizing the miscreant to continue to infringe copyright."

In a statement issued after the hearing, Google said, "We appreciate the concerns voiced, but we believe the settlement strikes the right balance and should not be destroyed to satisfy the particular interests of the objectors," the Washington Post reported.

30. Chuckles: Finding humor amid the stacks and shelves

Online blogspot Kung Fu Monkey offers this comparison of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" to Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings: "One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other... involves orcs."

31. Shortlist announced for 2010 Diagram Prize for oddest book title

The contenders for this year's Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book Title of the Year have now been narrowed down to a shortlist of six.

The winner will be chosen by public vote at the Bookseller.com's website and announced March 26.
The shortlist includes The Changing World of Inflammatory Bowel Disease by Ellen Scherl and  Maria Dubinsky, Afterthoughts of a Worm Hunter by David Crompton, Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich by James A. Yannes, Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes by Daina Taimina, Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots by Ronald C. Arkin, and What Kind of Bean Is This Chihuahua? by Tara Jansen-Meyer.

32. News from trade shows, book fairs and book festivals

Jon Stewart will serve as master of ceremonies for the Author Breakfast at Book Expo America on May 27. The breakfast features Condoleezza Rice, John Grisham and Mary Roach.  Other speakers on this year's BEA special events programs include Cory Doctorow, Sarah Ferguson, William Gibson, Sara Gruen, Christopher Hitchens, Patton Oswalt, Richard Peck and Mitali Perkins.  For BEA's lineup of speakers and events, go here…

33. Major upcoming trade shows, book fairs and book festivals

March

March 12-15. Shortened National Association of College Stores CAMEX show in Orlando, Fla., reduced to four days from its traditional five. Under the new schedule, the trade show and educational panels will overlap somewhat on Saturday, March 13. 

March 26-28. Spring Book Show - Atlanta, GA. Cobb Galleria Centre - Renaissance-Waverly Hotel. SBS is one of the largest remainder and bargain book shows in the world. www.springbookshow.com
March. Bologna Children’s Book Fair- Bologna, Italy.

April

April 16-18. Philadelphia Book Festival, http://libwww.freelibrary.org/bookfestival/, attended by 35,000 and more than 50 authors, performers.

April 19-21. London Book Fair - www.londonbookfair.co.uk. April 19-21. Global marketplace for sale and distribution of content across print, audio, TV, film and digital channels

April 24-25. Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, a big festival attracting 150,000 readers - http://www.latimes.com/extras/festivalofbooks April 24-

May

May 6-9.  Harlem Book Festival, http://www.qbr.com/, Bermuda.

May 17-20. The Museum Store Association's Retail Conference & Expo
National Stationery Show. New York City.

May 25-27. BookExpo America -  Jacob Javits Center, NYC, the premier North American book show of the year.  http://www.bookexpoamerica.com 

June

The American Library Association - Anaheim, CA.

June 12-13. Printers Row Book Fair, http://www.chicagotribune.com/about/events/printersrow a large book fair attended by more than 100,000 book lovers in 2009.

The International New Age Trade Show West - Denver, Colo.

June 24-29. American Library Association's Annual Conference. Some 2,000 seminars and events as well as a huge trade show. http://www.ala.org/ala/conferencesevents/upcoming/annual/index.cfm Washington, D.C., some 2,000 seminars and events plus a huge trade show.

June 27-30. CBA/The International Christian Retail Show, St. Louis, Mo.www.christianretailshow.com. Considered the best show for Christian authors. See also http://www.marketingchristianbooks.com

June. The National Association of College Stores Conference. www.nacs.org

August

August 20-21 (tentative). The Great American Bargain Book Show (GABBS) – Boston, Hynes Convention Center. www.gabbs.net

August. The New York International Gift Fair – www.nyigf.com

August. New Orleans-Gulf South Booksellers Association.

September

Sept. 4-5. Decatur Book Festival, Decatur (Atlanta), Ga.,  http://www.decaturbookfestival.com/Community/index.php. Held Labor Day weekend, claims to attract over 50,000 book fans.

Sept. 24-26.  Baltimore Book Festival, attracts more than 100 authors, http://www.baltimorebookfestival.com.

October

Oct. 6-10. Frankfurt Book Fair 2010. This is the Big Daddy of all book shows, the biggest in the world. Argentina is the Guest of Honor. Held in Frankfurt, Germany.

Oct. 8-10. Southern Festival of Books: A Celebration of the Written Word, http://tn-humanities.org/festival/index.php, Nashville, Tenn., attracts more than 200 authors from throughout the U.S.

October. Litquake, San Francisco’s Literary Festival.  Event was held Oct. 9-17 in 2009. We’ll post the 2010 dates when we get ‘em. Meanwhile, visit http://www.litquake.org.

Louisiana Book Festival, Baton Rouge, http://lbf.state.lib.la.us. Event was held Oct. 16-17 in 2009. Oct. 30. Also visit http://www.litquake.org.

November

Nov. 14-21. Miami Book Fair International, http://www.miamibookfair.com draws hundreds of thousands of people.

Dates uncertain – check hyperlink for Show Web site

Litquake, San Francisco’s Literary Festival, http://www.litquake.org

Ann Arbor Book Festival, http://www.aabookfestival.org/, Ann Arbor MI

National Book Festival, http://www.loc.gov/bookfest/ sponsored by the Library of Congress on the Mall in Washington, D.C. Held on Sept. 26 in 2009.

Vegas Valley Book Festival, Las Vegas, http://www.vegasvalleybookfest.org

Kentucky Book Fair, http://www.kybookfair.com. Frankfort Convention Center, attended by up to 5,000 people including 150 authors.

Texas Book Fair, http://www.texasbookfestival.org. Established in 1995 by First Lady Laura Bush, a former librarian, more than 45,000 attend.

Delaware Book Fair & Authors Day, http://heritage.delaware.gov/book_fair.shtml.

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