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Welcome
to the Vol. 7, No. 11 November 2009Index (scroll down for stories)
1.
Mackenzie Phillips details drug use and incest in new memoir 1. Mackenzie Phillips details drug use and incest in new memoir
High on Arrival,
a memoir from actress Mackenzie Phillips, was released in September. Singer-songwriter John Phillips was the founder of the Mamas and the Papas. He enjoyed an extraordinary run of hits in the late ’60s, including “California Dreamin’,” “Monday, Monday” and “Dedicated to the One I Love.” He also co-wrote the 1988 Beach Boys hit “Kokomo.” But Phillips had a number of addiction issues which undoubtedly contributed to the patchiness of his post-Mamas solo career and, ultimately, to his demise in 2001 at the age of 65.
Daughter Mackenzie Phillips, best known as a TV star on
One Day at a Time, is also
an addict, and hers is a book not about celebrity life, but about the frantic,
unremitting scramble to get high.
People magazine probably thought it had a coup when it bought the rights to publish an exclusive excerpt from the book. People posted a story about the excerpt on its website ("Mackenzie Phillips: I Slept with My Own Father"). But Oprah’s interview with Phillips, part one of which aired a day before People was on the stands, took full credit for the revelation. Phillips also recounted an affair with Mick Jagger, as well as the first time her father - who died in 2001 - shot her up with cocaine. Oprah posted an excerpt from the book on her website. Just as People’s excerpt was hitting newsstands, Phillips appeared twice on NBC’s “Today” for a sit-down with Meredith Vieira and Al Roker (two segments – a total of 23 minutes), and an excerpt from High on Arrival was posted on the “Today” show site. According to a publicist at Simon & Schuster, the publisher of High on Arrival, People was given second serial rights, a non-exclusive since the book was published a day before People’s excerpt. However, People bent those rights by publishing its story on the Web on a day before the book was released. Dr. Drew Pinsky said the topic of Phillips' incestuous relationship with her father came up while shooting the upcoming season of VH1's "Celebrity Rehab." The addiction specialist breaks down the relationship between the 1960s rock star and his troubled daughter. Pinsky says he and Phillips talked about the relationship in private, but out of respect for her family, she told him she didn't want those discussions televised. 2. First book published in America inaugurates Espresso unit in Boston The independent Harvard Book Store inaugurated its new Espresso instant book machine, which can print a library-quality paperback book in just four minutes, on Sept. 29 by ordering it to spit out a copy of the first book published in America. The book, now in public domain, is Facsimile of First Edition of The Whole Booke of Psalmes Faithfully Translated into English Metre, commonly known as the Bay Psalm Book. It was the first book ever printed in the American colonies, in Cambridge in 1640.
Author E.L. Doctorow - who was doing a reading later in the evening at In a contest to name its new Espresso machine, Harvard Book Store selected the name Paige M. Gutenborg from a variety of entries. The store received more than 500 suggested names. The Espresso machine addresses two of the problem areas of the publishing business. First, publishers have always had to print and ship books to stores, which is costly and time-consuming. With a machine like the Espresso, all that needs to be shipped is a digital file. And at the end of a book's shelf lives, those that go unsold are returned to publishers, who, according to the traditional consignment business model, buy them back. Again, this is costly, and for years authors' royalty statements will show the cost of returns deducted from the money earned from sales of their books. With an Espresso, the bookseller need only print a book when a customer is ready to buy it, and returns could become moot. That's still largely hypothetical, however. Only a few publishers have signed with On Demand Books, the company that makes the Espresso, to deliver digital files to its bookstore machines. But On Demand’s offerings expanded significantly - to the tune of two million public domain books - when it signed an agreement with Google earlier this month.
3. Breaking news from the book barons
First-day sales of The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown exceeded one million
copies in the U.S., Canada and the U.K., according to the publisher.
In its first week, the title sold two million copies. The publisher has already
gone back to press for another 600,000 copies on top of the initial print run of
five million copies… An Amazon spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal
that the Kindle edition of The Lost Symbol outsold hardcover editions,
excluding advance orders on the release date. “The big surprise was that,
despite sustained, strong physical books sales… we saw the Kindle edition
outsell hardcover editions on the book’s release day,” wrote Andrew Herdener, an
Amazon spokesman in an e-mail message. He noted, however, that the numbers did
not include pre-orders of the hardcover, which had pushed the title to No. 1 on
Amazon’s bestseller list more than a week before its release Sept. 15. Knopf
Doubleday Publishing Group had worried over whether to release the e-book on the
same day the hardcover went on sale, in part because of concerns over the
e-book’s possible effect on hardcover sales. In the end, the publisher decided
to let the book go on sale in both forms at the same time. Electronic books so
far have represented only one and four4 percent of overall book sales, according
to publishers… Borders Group has joined Barnes & Noble and is now offering
free wi-fi service to customers. Verizon is providing the service, which
should be available in most of the 500 Borders stores by mid-October… The
Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and
Annie Barrows, has sold 421,000 copies in hardcover and 583,000 in
paperback, many of the sales to book clubs. Movie rights have been optioned. Former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has finished co-authoring her memoir just four months after the book deal was announced, and the release date has been moved up from spring 2010 to Nov. 17. "Governor Palin has been unbelievably conscientious and hands-on at every stage, investing herself deeply and passionately in this project," said Jonathan Burnham, publisher at Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins, which has commissioned a first printing of 1.5 million copies, the same as for Sen. Ted Kennedy's True Compass. The book, titled Going Rogue: An American Life, will be 400 pages long, said Burnham. The digital edition of Palin's memoir will not be released at the same time as the hardcover. Going Rogue will not be available as an e-book until Dec. 26. Publishers have been concerned that e-books might take away sales from hardcover editions which are more expensive. Palin, 45, spent weeks in San Diego working on the manuscript with collaborator Lynn Vincent, a person close to her said. She was joined in San Diego by her family and her top aide, Meghan Stapleton, then spent several days in New York working around the clock with editors at Harper, said a person who wasn't authorized to comment and asked not to be identified.
5. Palin’s new memoir described as ‘thinly disguised press release’
Ex-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's new memoir is being variously described as “a
thinly disguised press release” and “nothing more than a vitriolic attack on
Levi Johnston, the estranged father of teen Bristol Palin’s child” 6. Zondervan will publish new book by evangelist Rick Warren Zondervan has signed an exclusive agreement with Dr. Rick Warren, author of the bestselling book, The Purpose Driven Life, to publish his next major book release. Warren and his wife Kay founded Saddleback Church in Orange County, Calif., which is now one of the largest and best-known churches in the nation. Seven years after the success of his signature title that became the No. 1 all-time bestselling hardcover non-fiction book in publishing history, Warren has gone back to the writing studio to create The Hope You Need. "My motivation as an author has always been the message, not the market and I have been waiting for the right time, until I had something to say that would speak to the personal and societal problems we all face," Warren said. "With unemployment in some parts of the country running as high as 15 percent, many individuals - including my own congregation - are feeling the pinch of this recession, and are in need of hope." Inspired by an eight-part sermon series Warren taught on the Lord's Prayer at Saddleback Church earlier this year, The Hope You Need invites readers to plug into the unparalleled power that exists within the words of the Lord’s Prayer. The Hope You Need will release simultaneously in English and Spanish worldwide on Nov.17. 7. News about bookstores, publishing, marketing and promotion Reading Group Choices has released Reading Group Choices 2010: Selections for Lively Book Discussions (16th edition), which includes more than 70 titles recommended for book groups. Barbara Drummond Mead, president of Reading Group Choices, commented: "Selecting discussible books since 1994, Reading Group Choices is proud to be a pioneer in providing print and online resources for reading groups." Reading Group Choices has a website, monthly e-newsletter and presence on online social communities. 8. Google enters print book market in deal with On Demand Books
Google is partnering with book publisher On Demand Books in a deal that will
permit the search giant to enter the print market. Though On Demand's Expresso Book Machine technology first entered the book market in 2006, the Google deal substantially boosts On Demand's book inventory. It also gives Google a valuable revenue stream, allowing users to buy, in physical form, the scanned books that Google to date has only made available for free online reading and reading with electronic readers. Google will provide some two million out-of-copyright book titles to the On Demand Books partnership, more than doubling the number of titles available on the machines through On Demand's existing licensing partnerships. Depending on the outcome of the U.S. Justice Department's investigation into the Google Books project, the search giant could potentially add another six million orphan book titles to the partnership. On Demand as this was written had 16 machines installed at various stores, libraries and universities, and planned to make another 64 available in 2010. The machines are priced at $75,000-$100,000 each and have the capacity to generate around 60,000 300-page books a year. According to the Associated Press, On Demand and Google each will get $1 of every book sale from Espresso machines. Google says it will donate its proceeds to charity. The books published by the Espresso machine will have a recommended sale price of $8 per copy. However, the final pricing decision will be left to each retailer.
9. ABA’s Vlahos offers survival advice to Western booksellers In a session entitled “Surviving Tough Times” at the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association (MPIBA) annual trade show, Len Vlahos, chief operating officer of the American Booksellers Association, offered practical advice about how to reduce costs and increase sales - such as renegotiating leases, cutting staff hours and using part time employees more than full time employees. Even skimping on bags saves money, Vlahos noted He said that instructing employees to shift from asking customers, “Would you like a bag?” to “Do you need a bag?” cuts bag use by 20 percent. Attendees agreed with Vlahos that sales of regular-priced books are down, while sales of used, bargain and sale books are up. One bookseller said that the suggested cost-cutting measures might be helpful, but added, “I fear that this is not going to be temporary, that this is the new normal.” Vlahos conceded, “If we’re defining a new normal, the business model of running a store that sells almost exclusively new books to customers is probably not sustainable.” (Source: Jenny Shank’s NewWest.net blog, 9-29-09) 10. Books to Movies Department According to Variety, Herman Melville's classic novel Moby Dick is being adapted as an epic for TV in what will be TeleMunchen Group's most expensive production ever. Charlie Cox (Ishmael), Donald Sutherland (Father Mapple) and Gillian Anderson (Ahab's wife, Elizabeth) have joined a cast led by William Hurt as Ahab and Ethan Hawke as Starbuck. The $25.5 million production began shooting in Lunenburg, near Halifax, Canada, in mid-September and will continue in Malta. 11. How bad is it – and what is the book business doing to cope?
In the first quarter of 2009, the value of sales in Britain's £4 billion book
publishing industry fell 6.5 percent. The volume of books
being sold has stagnated for the last two years at around 855 million books per
annum. Publishing houses previously thought to be recession-proof are now in
trouble. Penguin just announced it was preparing for the future by eliminating
100 staffers at its London office, about 10 percent of its workforce. Random
House and HarperCollins have already shucked five percent of their workforces.
In April, Waterstone's blamed a 4.5 percent drop in its sales on declining
interest in celebrity biographies and travel books… Barnes & Noble has
reported sales for the nine weeks through Oct. 3, which now comprises part of
its fiscal second quarter. Same-store sales at Barnes & Noble fell 4.1
percent to $665 million, while results at BN.com rose eight percent to $91
million. BN is restructuring its fiscal year so it coincides with its
just-acquired BN College unit. July bookstore sales dropped 0.5 percent compared to July 2008, according to preliminary estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau released in mid-September.
For the year to date, bookstore sales dropped 2.5 percent to $8.523 billion.
13. Scholastic narrows first quarter loss Book publisher Scholastic Corp. posted a narrower loss for its fiscal first (June-August) quarter, helped by improving educational technology sales to schools as well as children's books. The company, which typically posts a loss during the period, lost $23 million, or 63 cents per share. That compares with a loss of $49 million, or $1.30 per share, a year ago. Including results from discontinued operations, the company said its loss per share in the most recent quarter came to 68 cents per share, compared with $1.13 a year earlier. Sales climbed 14 percent to $315.6 million. "Scholastic's strong first quarter puts the company firmly on plan to achieve significantly higher earnings and free cash flow this fiscal year," Chief Executive Richard Robinson said in a statement. Revenue for the company's educational publishing division jumped 29 percent to $148.7 million. Children's book publishing revenue grew 25 percent to $76.2 million, led by a 25 percent increase in the trade segment which benefitted from sales of the paperback edition of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and the release of the fifth title in the 39 Clues series. The Hunger Games also continued to sell well. Sales through book clubs rose 46 percent, while book fair sales fell seven percent; the first quarter represents a small portion of revenue for clubs and fairs. However, international sales dropped 10 percent to $75.6 million. Media, licensing and advertising revenue fell six percent to $15.1 million. led by a 25 percent increase in the trade segment which benefitted from sales of the paperback edition of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and the release of the fifth title in the 39 Clues series. The Hunger Games also continued to sell well. Sales through book clubs rose 46 percent, while book fair sales fell seven percent. In educational publishing, revenue increased 29 percent, to $148.7 million, with sales of educational technology, including Scholastic’s READ 180 program, rising by $35 million as Federal stimulus money began finding its way to schools. Sales to classroom libraries was flat in the quarter. The company is moving ahead with plans to restructure its U.K. division and said one-time costs associated with the reorganization will range from $7 to $10 million. 14. Publisher sales to book outlets rise two percent in July
Net sales of books in July rose two percent to $1.54 billion compared to July
2008, and were up 1.9 percent to $5.254 billion for the year to date, according
to figures reported by 84 publishers to the Association of American Publishers.
15. The publishing revolution: News of e-books and other new media Barnes & Noble said in mid-September that downloads of the B&N Bookstore app and the B&N eReader app for iPhones and iPod Touches have hit the million mark. In addition, the B&N eReader app has been No. 1 in the ITunes books category through the summer, and B&N store customers have had almost two million AT&T wi-fi sessions since the service was made complimentary in all B&N stores six weeks earlier… E-books accounted for five percent of the initial sales of The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, according to the Los Angeles Times - or about 100,000 of the two million copies sold as of Sept. 30. 16. Google Books Partners Program revives interest in Galbraith book The Google Books Partner Program has signed up virtually all of the best-known book publishers, who participate for free, including prominent Boston firms like Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. How can the program help publishers? Take The Great Crash 1929, by John Kenneth Galbraith, first published in 1955 and now out of print - one of thousands of books on the backlist of Boston publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Normally, Galbraith’s book would have faded from public attention. But recently, it has been rising in visibility on Google Books, a service that was unavailable when the book first appeared. When the global economic crisis erupted in late 2008, Internet users went searching for information about previous stock market crashes, which led them to Galbraith’s book, the entire content of which is now searchable on Google. Right next to the search window: a half dozen sites, like Amazon, where the book can be purchased. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt couldn’t be happier with the exposure. According to HMH, The Great Crash 1929 generated zero views for July and August 2008. Then, in September 2008, as the collapse of Lehman Brothers caused the U.S. economy to start teetering, book views of the Galbraith tome rose to 628. By October, the views rocketed to 22,897, as Internet users started searching for words and concepts that were well represented in the book, although the number of views did subside later. Sales of Galbraith’s book also spiked during the peak viewership months.
17. PW survey finds publishers in search of new business models Just over 72 percent of publishers taking part in a survey on the impact of digitization on book publishing said the development of new business models, new multimedia products and effective marketing strategies are the biggest challenges facing publishers as they make the transition from print to digital. The survey was conducted by the Frankfurt Book Fair and the German trade magazine Buchreport in cooperation with Publishers Weekly, and received responses from 840 publishers around the world. What forms the new business models should take and how publishers will charge for content generated no consensus. Charging readers a flat rate that would allow them access to all of a information provider’s online content similar to a traditional subscription model was favored by 25 percent of respondents, especially those from Europe. Paying for snippets of content through micropayments was favored by 23 percent, with that method backed the most in Great Britain and the U.S. The premium model, under which users would pay for selected online content, found support from 16 percent of respondents. At present e-books are generating the most revenue, although publishers remain unsure on how to price those titles. The survey found that the majority of publishers support pricing e-books below the price of print books, with only 19 percent saying e-books should be as expensive as the print book or more expensive. What the discount should be below the print price had a wide range of responses with the highest percentage, 30 percent, saying e-books should be priced at 30 percent off the print price. Sixty percent of publishers said sales of digital products are expected to represent less than 10 percent of total revenue in 2009, although that is expected to change in the next two years, with 58 percent saying they believe that in 2011 digital sales will account for over 10 percent of revenue. By 2018, about 50 percent of respondents said they believe more of their revenue will come from digital products than print. The majority of responses came from Europe (74 percent), followed by the U.S. (11 percent) and Great Britain (four percent). Trade houses accounted for 32 percent of respondents, with information publishers second at 20 percent and educational publisher third at 10 percent. (Source: Jim Milliot, Publishers Weekly, Sept. 28, 2009) 18. E-book release delayed for Kennedy memoir Publisher Twelve decided to hold off "indefinitely" on a digital edition of deceased Sen. Ted Kennedy’s final memoire, True Compass. Kennedy, diagnosed last year with brain cancer, died Aug. 25 at age 77. The head of Twelve, Jonathan Karp, said that the delay was a "business decision" and added that the pictures and illustrations in True Compass cannot be duplicated in e-book form. "It (the delay) does not reflect any larger corporate policy," said Karp, whose imprint is part of the Hachette Book Group. "We publish each book individually and we felt that this particular hardcover edition of True Compass deserves to be the first and pre-eminent format for the book." The growth of electronic sales, widely believed to be between one to two percent of the overall market and higher still for current best sellers, has made publishers worry that the market would suffer for more expensive hardcover editions. True Compass has a list price of $35. E-books usually sell for under $10. The book was originally scheduled to come out in 2010, but was moved up to October of this year, then Sept. 14, in hopes that Kennedy would live to see its publication. Twelve announced a first printing of 1.5 million copies and preorders of the True Compass hardcover have been strong enough to place the book in the top 10 on Amazon.com. Kennedy agreed to publish with Twelve in 2007 and reportedly received $8-$9 million for his book
19. Disney launches Digital Books initiative targeting children Disney Publishing Worldwide said in September that it has launched its online Disney Digital Books initiative. The company said that the site offers more than 500 children's books, including titles from Disney franchises like Mickey Mouse, Toy Story, Cars and Hannah Montana. More books and features will be added on an ongoing basis, the company said. 20. Sony ramps up e-book self-publishing options After watching Amazon make huge headway in the e-book self-publishing game with its Digital Text Platform, Sony is finally making a real push into this area with a new Publisher Portal and partnerships with self-publishing companies Smashwords and Author Solutions. "New authors can select a self-publishing path and get their work published and for sale on Sony's eBook Store in as little as 10 days," Sony representatives said. "As Sony completes the conversion of its eBook store to the industry-standard EPUB format, Smashwords and Authors Solution will expand the offer to all existing Author Solutions and Smashwords authors to get their titles up on the Sony site." Author Solutions, one of the larger vanity press companies, with several brands, offers a full suite of self-publishing services, most of which are fee-based. Start-up Smashwords is focused exclusively on e-book creation and sales, and it is free to use - you simply upload a Word file, make some tweaks to your formatting based on a style guide, and presto, you have an e-book. According to Sony, Author Solutions and Smashwords will offer authors the option to publish content in the EPUB format, "the International Digital Publishing Forum's XML-based standard format for reflowable digital books and publications." Amazon, on the other hand, uses its proprietary e-book format. 21. There be sharks: Be careful of where you swim in the book biz ocean TheWorldWritesABook.com has launched a Twitter campaign to recruit a million persons to contibute a sentence to a novel. “We are a grassroots effort to have the world co-write a novel,” the site tweets. “We are selling nothing. Please see our website for info, and please tweet us to your followers. Enjoy our little experiment.” We’ve commented in the past about these efforts to write a book by clusterf—k. While such efforts may appear innocent, they are often used by unscrupulous vendors such as publishers of books of financial advice. The vendors take stock financial advice copy and for a fee, slap a cover on the material, attributing the book to one or another financial “expert.” The buyer then buys hundreds of the books to hand out to unwitting elderly clients who attend seminars - usually at expensive restaurants - where they seek advice on investing their life’s savings with the “expert.” Little wonder the world breeds so many Bernie Maddoxes. 22. News of self-publishing and vanity presses: Author Solutions seeks to be largest publisher of digital content Author Solutions Inc. (ASI) has announced an initiative to become the world's largest publisher and marketer of original digital content. ASI has begun making alliances with digital content portals, giving its titles widespread digital availability. In the process, ASI will produce digital versions of all new titles it publishes, convert thousands from its backlist, and make them available through several popular e-readers and e-channels to readers worldwide. ASI in coming months will begin making titles available through Sony's e-Book Store. "Author Solutions leads the world in new titles brought to market with more than 20,000 annually,” said Kevin Weiss, ASI president and chief executive officer. “We will convert every new title and tens of thousands from our backlist into digital formats and make them available through the leading digital content portals. We believe as our self-publishing business continues to accelerate, we will become the world's largest publisher of original digital content,". In 2008, ASI brought to market more than 21,000 unique titles through its vanity press imprints AuthorHouse, AuthorHouse UK, iUniverse, Trafford Publishing, Wordclay and Xlibris. Overall, ASI has helped more than 85,000 authors worldwide bring more than 120,000 titles to market. Author Solutions, Inc. is owned by Bertram Capital Management LLC Headquartered in Bloomington, Indiana, ASI also operates offices in Indianapolis and Milton Keynes, England. 23. Inkubook attributes 60 percent of first year sales to email marketing Online photo book publisher Inkubook, a subsidiary of vanity press AuthorHouse, says that that its ExactTarget email marketing campaigns drove more than 60 percent of the brand`s first-year revenue. Launched in July 2008 as one of six self-publishing brands owned by Author Solutions, Inkubook posted the first-year results using ExactTarget’s on-demand email technology to build relationships between the photo book publisher and its growing list of more than 50,000 members around the world. Using ExactTarget’s Core Edition in tandem with its customer database, Inkubook automatically builds and sends messages to its members based on their activity on the book builder’s Web site. The technology allows the company to remain in contact with customers during the book creation process, informing them of their current project status and encouraging them to finish should they abandon a project before completion. The re-engagement effort, Inkubook`s Market Development Manager Jim Eup said, has driven nearly 20 percent of the company’s first year revenue. Inkubook sends monthly newsletters to customers featuring season-specific offers and promotions. To extend the reach of the newsletters, the company includes links to its Facebook and Twitter pages in emails and invites customers to share special offers with friends and family, Eup said. "Inkubook joins a growing list of small and sophisticated businesses leveraging our reliable and powerful one-to-one marketing platform to connect with their customers and drive increased sales," said Tim Kopp, ExactTarget`s chief marketing officer. The news of Inkubook posting positive first year results follows the launch of ExactTarget’s free new guide for small businesses entitled “Think Big.” The nine-page guide highlights how small- and medium-sized businesses can use advanced, budget-friendly one-to-one marketing solutions to drive sales and compete with larger rivals. 24. Marketing books: what works and what doesn’t According to Forbes, the market for direct-mail-sold books was four percent of overall wholesale book sales. Today, according to the same source, that market has shrunk to about 1.4 percent... Do celebrity endorsements help sell books? Yes indeed. Recent research has shown that celebrity endorsements can have a positive influence on the credibility, message recall, memory and likeability of a promotional piece as well as a positive influence on purchase intentions. One beta test in 2009 showed that celebrity-endorsed advertising prompted a 13.5 times greater conversion rate for viewers on the internet. 25. Universal preparing to open Harry Potter Theme Park in Florida The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, a new Florida theme park, will open in the spring of 2010 and allow visitors to explore Hogwarts Castle, buy Quidditch equipment and drink Butterbeer. Universal Orlando unveiled details of the park, a 20-acre addition to its Islands of Adventure property, in a video presentation on the Web. The resort, owned by NBC Universal, secured the theme park rights to J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books in May.
The “theme park within a theme park” will be faithful to the visual landscapes
of the Harry Potter films produced by Warner Brothers, which licensed the rights
to Universal after a flirtation with the Walt Disney Company. “We’ve tried to
include something from every book,” said Alan Gilmore, an art director for the
films who is helping to oversee the theme park design. “We wanted fans to be able to truly live the experience of these movies,” said Mark Woodbury, president of Universal Creative. Islands of Adventure could use the help. Attendance has suffered due to the recession and complaints by tourists that it lacks new attractions. Analysts say about 5.3 million people visited the park in 2008. By comparison, Disney’s nearby Magic Kindgom attracted about 17 million people. The Harry Potter park will have three major rides. The primary one will be a high-tech experience inside the castle involving likenesses of the heroes from the films and interactive shopping. The Ollivander’s Wand Shop will replicate Ms. Rowling’s storyline: the wand chooses the wizard instead of the other way around. Flight of the Hippogriff is described as a family coaster that simulates a Hippogriff, the half-horse, half-eagle beast that first appeared in “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.” Dragon Challenge will be a twin high-speed roller coaster that will feature elements from the Triwizard Tournament. (Source: Brooks Barnes, The New York Times) 26. Eli and Peyton Manning boost Scholastic ClassroomsCare Challenge There's a football/schoolmatch-up this fall and millions of kids across the U.S. will benefit Top names in education and in football - Scholastic Inc. and Super Bowl MVPs Eli and Peyton Manning - are joining forces and inviting America's teachers and students, along with several key charity partners, to join them in bringing more than one million books to kids in need across the U.S. via Scholastic Book Clubs' ClassroomsCare program. The ClassroomsCare program has been successful in distributing more than nine million books since 2001 to kids in need through charity partners like Reach Out and Read and Save the Children. This year, Scholastic will also be coordinating with the Mannings' youth charities, including the Peyton Manning PeyBack Foundation and The Eli Manning Children's Clinics. Scholastic will also be publishing a new picture book, Family Huddle, featuring America's most famous football family, the Mannings. ClassroomsCare is an annual challenge to the one million classrooms that use Scholastic Book Clubs. Participating classes read 100 books, triggering a donation of books from Scholastic Book Clubs to ClassroomsCare's charity partners. The books are then donated throughout the year to kids in preschool to middle school who in many cases would not otherwise have books of their own. Classrooms keep track of books read on posters and online, and then tell Scholastic when they've finished. Any books kids read in the classroom, with their parents or on their own count toward the goal. Teachers also can use lesson plans and activities available at http://classroomscare.scholastic.com to incorporate this program into their curriculum. More than one million classrooms have participated in ClassroomsCare since its founding in 2001, helping Scholastic Book Clubs to donate more than nine million books to kids. 27. Milestones: Records and news of note in book publishing
Jean Valentine has won the $100,000 Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of
American Poets.
The prize recognizes "outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry."
"There would be many ways to describe Jean Valentine's poems," said Academy
chancellor Gerald Stern. "One of them would be as if to see her in a
dream-world, with all the immediacy, the panic, the odd journey that dreams
give. But add to that a great moral vision, infinite skill, and beauty."…
The 2009 Nobel Prize in literature has been awarded to Herta Müller. A
Romanian-born novelist, essayist and poet, Müller writes in German. She was
praised by the judges for depicting the "landscape of the dispossessed" with
"the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose." Her work is far better
known in Germany than in the U.S.
Perhaps her best-known work is Herztier, published by Reinbek bei Hamburg
in 1994. An English translation by Michael Hofmann entitled The Land of Green
Plums was published in the U.S. by Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt & Company
in 1996. 29. Reinhard Mohn, driving force at Bertelsmann, dead at 88 Reinhard Mohn, 88, who helped transform media group Bertelsmann AG from a German book publisher to an international media company, has died. Mohn helped steer the company into a wide array of publishing - including the acquisition of U.S.-based publishing giant Random House - and other ventures. He spent some 45 years with the company and most recently served as honorary chairman of the company's supervisory board. Born in Guetersloh, Germany, in 1921, Mohn took over his family's printing and publishing business, C. Bertelsmann Verlag, in 1947. He expanded the operation by embracing sales representatives and catalogs and the company grew to incorporate magazine publishing, television broadcasting and other avenues. In 1971, he helped oversee the family-owned company's transformation into a publicly held stock corporation and become chairman and chief executive. In 1977, he established the Bertelsmann Stiftung foundation. He retired from the company in 1981 but remained on Bertelsmann's supervisory board, the German equivalent of a board of directors - for a further decade. Bertelsmann's assets include book publisher Random House, TV broadcaster RTL, a majority stake in magazine publisher Gruner + Jahr and the Direct Group of book and media clubs. Bertelsmann sold the U.S. portion of the Direct Group book club in 2008. Though headquartered in Germany, Bertelsmann's 106,000 employees are scattered across its divisions in more than 50 countries. The company is a privately held stock corporation that is owned by the Mohn family with 23.1 percent and the Bertelsmann Foundation with 76.9 percent. The company has operations in 50 countries. 30. News of chicanery, dishonesty and tort-feasing in the book business
Jerry Seinfeld’s better half, Jessica Seinfeld, did not plagiarize another
writer's work for her cookbook, Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get
Your Kids Eating Good Food, according to a ruling by Judge Laura Taylor
Swain of Federal District Court in Manhattan, as reported by the New York
Times. Seinfeld had been accused of
copyright infringement, trademark violations and unfair competition by Missy
Chase Lapine, whose The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy
Foods in Kids' Favorite Meals took a similar tack. Former Army reservist Lynndie England is suing Gary S. Winkler, the biographer who wrote the book she hoped would tell her side of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. England claims Winkler has seized control of what was intended to be a shared copyright by abruptly resigning in July from A Few Bad Apples LLC, a West Virginia company set up to handle finances, and forming his own Virginia-based publishing company, Bad Apple Books LLC. Winkler denies any wrongdoing. "The book is not selling well," said Winkler, of Fincastle, Va. "I think there's this impression I've been sitting on this cash. I wish it were true... Nobody's getting rich here. I'm in the hole." It's unclear how many books have been sold, but Winkler said he's sold only about 20 through his Web site and perhaps a few hundred through other online retailers. The book, released in June, is called Tortured: Lynndie England, Abu Ghraib and the Photographs That Shocked the World. England, 26, of Fort Ashby, Va., has said she hopes it will help people understand she had a limited role in the mistreatment of detainees at the Iraqi prison in 2004. The photographs show her holding a restraint around a man's neck, and giving a thumbs-up and pointing at the genitals of naked, hooded men, a cigarette dangling from her mouth. England, one of 11 soldiers found guilty of wrongdoing, is currently appealing convictions for conspiracy, mistreating detainees and committing an indecent act. While admitting she made some bad decisions, England has said it wasn't her place to question the "softening-up" treatments sanctioned long before she arrived. England, whose complaint cites numerous conflicts with Winkler, also claims Winkler has refused to provide access to online accounts that she could use to monitor book sales and revenues. Her longtime attorney-turned-agent Roy Hardy, meanwhile, claims in an affidavit that Winkler refused to list England as a co-author or let her deal directly with promoters. Hardy contends Winkler conducted all book-related business from his home without keeping England informed, canceled book signings after she had made travel arrangements and made disparaging remarks about England to the press. Winkler has countered that Hardy regularly interfered with their Los Angeles-based publicist and brokered separate deals for England. Things also "crashed and burned pretty fast" after the Library of Congress canceled England's scheduled August appearance, Winkler said. An employee who organized the event said he had received several e-mails threatening violence if England spoke. Winkler said he shared a checking account with Hardy and England, and that he paid bills to the book cover designer and others while the pair carelessly withdrew money. He claims he set up the limited liability company to handle administrative issues and to protect himself. Winkler said his relationship with England, Hardy and Hardy's wife, Christy, has been difficult from the start, when he signed on to what he believed would be an autobiography. But he said he took on a bigger role when England had trouble communicating. "She's not a deep person unless you make her reflect on what was going on," Winkler said. "The only way to get anything out of her was to go up there and get into her home and sit down at her kitchen table. I had to hammer her. I sat with her for countless hours. I wanted people to see a human being." England and 10 other soldiers were found guilty of wrongdoing, and in mid-September, she lost the bulk of her appeal claims. 32. Pirates post purloined copies of new Dan Brown novel on Web You can buy The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown as a Kindle ebook for $9.99 at Amazon.com. Or, if you’re not quite honest, you can download a free pirated copy from an online site such as RapidShare, Megaupload, Hotfile and other file-storage sites. Those pirated copies are blamed for being at least partially responsible for declining hardcover sales. The Association of American Publishers estimates that hardcover sales in the United States declined 13 percent in 2008 versus the previous year. This year, hardback sales were down 15.5 percent through July versus the same period of 2008. Total e-book sales, though up considerably this year, remain a small part of the overall book market, at $81.5 million, or 1.6 percent of total book sales through July. Adam Rothberg, vice president for corporate communications at Simon & Schuster, says: “Everybody in the industry considers piracy a significant issue, but it’s been difficult to quantify the magnitude of the problem. We know people post things but we don’t know how many people take them.” Free file-sharing of e-books will most likely come to be associated with RapidShare, a file-hosting company based in Switzerland, says its customers have uploaded more than 10 petabytes of files to its site - more than 10 million gigabytes - and that it can handle up to three million users simultaneously. Anyone can upload, and anyone can download; for light users, the service is free. RapidShare does not list the files - a user must know the URL in order to download a document. But anyone who wants to make a file widely available simply publishes the URL and a description somewhere online, in a blog or a discussion forum, and Google and other search engines notice. No passwords protect the files. 33. Judge sets Nov. 9 deadline for amended Google book deal A federal judge has set a Nov. 9 deadline for submitting a revised agreement in the battle over Google Inc.'s effort to get digital rights to millions of out-of-print books. U.S. District Judge Denny Chin set the deadline after a lawyer for authors told the judge that Google and lawyers for authors and publishers were working around the clock to reach a new deal by early November. A $125 million agreement was being renegotiated after the U.S. government said it seemed the existing agreement would violate antitrust laws. The original deal was announced by Mountain View, Calif.-based Google and the publishing industry last October to resolve two copyright lawsuits contesting the book scanning plans. (See stories below.) Michael Boni, a lawyer for authors, told the judge that the new agreement would contain amendments to the original deal to make it more acceptable to the U.S. Justice Department, which had questioned its legality. William F. Cavanaugh, a deputy assistant attorney general, told the judge that the Justice Department has been in continuing discussions with the parties. However, he said the government was not yet aware of what the final deal will look like. He said he expected "meetings in the near term to go over whatever their proposal is." Cavanaugh asked that the judge give the government a week to 10 days after any deadline for objections to be submitted for the Justice Department to prepare its analysis of the new deal. 34. The Google lawsuit – what’s it all about?
At issue is the right to scan and make available online millions of books,
including out-of-print and in-the-public-domain works. Companies such as Microsoft, Yahoo and Amazon, but also consumer groups and professional associations, have filed complaints with the U.S. District Court opposing a settlement reached by Google with the Authors' Guild and the Association of American Publishers to create the Google Books Registry. In October, Judge Denny Chin of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York is set to review the settlement and hear both sides. The agreement was the result of a lawsuit brought by authors and publishers in 2005 on Google's effort to scan millions of library books. Last October, Google proposed paying $125 million for copyright infringements, and its former foes turned into new friends. Google began digitizing books in 2004. Google has now already digitized more than 10 million books, and the Google Books Search service boasts partnerships with some of the world's most renowned libraries, such as Harvard, Oxford, the New York Public Library and the Bavarian State Library in Germany. As part of the $125 million agreement under review, Google would have the right to scan out-of-copyright and out-of-print books, or copyrighted works from cooperating authors and publishers within the United States. The Open Book Alliance opposes the settlement. Co-founder Peter Brantley says that "with Google granted a monopoly to unclaimed works, it would exercise a monopoly over subscriptions for the most comprehensive collection of books available." 35. Judge Chin orders Google case parties to Oct. 7 ‘status conference’ Judge Denny Chin, who is overseeing the Google lawsuit settlement, agreed to a request from the Authors Guild and American Association of Publishers not to hold a full hearing on the proposed settlement on Oct. 7 "as it does not appear that the current settlement will be the operative one." But he said he did not want to wait another month to learn the status of negotiations as the Authors Guild and AAP had asked. At the Oct. 7 conference (as opposed to a hearing), he said he wanted "to determine how to proceed with the case as expeditiously as possible, as this case has now been pending for over four years."
While Chin did
not hear from any other petitioners at the hearing, they were free to attend. 36. European publishers square off against Google
The Google project (stories immediately above) has generated strong opposition
in Europe. In an attempt to thwart the rise of a potential competitor on the online book-selling market, Amazon filed its own brief with the U.S. District Court. Amazon filed a 50-page document stating that "the proposed settlement should be disapproved because it would restrain competition by creating a cartel of rights-holders and establishing Google as the exclusive distributor of electronic copies of millions of 'orphan' books and other works." Urging the court to reject the Google Books deal, Consumer Watchdog, a consumer group, said last week the proposed settlement conflicts with international copyright treaties such as the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. It "would strip rights from millions of absent-class members worldwide, for the sole benefit of Google," referring to authors and publishers who did not or could not opt out of the deal between Google and the Guild for the Google Book Search.
Google says that it won't scan books that are still commercially available in
Europe. The publishers also argue that Google's massive profits are "parasitic," as they were generated from sponsored links which are presented to web surfers searching for copyrighted books. Google's lawyer argues that the firm is not creating a library, but rather a book search service which makes information more freely accessible. "Google is not a philanthropic group; it is a commercial firm, but that does not mean it is guilty of illegal acts," said Alexandra Neri, who argued that publishers do not hold the rights to electronic copies of the books. The tribunal expects to reach a decision by Dec. 18. The French hearing comes after the California company struck a deal with author and publisher groups in the United States earlier this year, allowing it to copy books for the Internet. Germany has opposed a proposed settlement, which Google reached with the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers Inc. among others last year, saying Google could digitize books by German authors without their consent. Google has so far scanned about 10 million books through deals with libraries, publishers and authors but not always with permission from rights-holders and out-of-print books which are hard to find. Google argues that scanning and publishing millions of books online makes access to information on the web more democratic. 37. News from trade shows, book fairs and book festivals The Göteborg Book Fair in Sweden took place Sept. 24-27. Focus this year was Spain. The Fair has had an average of over 100,000 visitors and 800 exhibitors in past years.
38. Major upcoming trade shows, book fairs and book festivals October
Oct. 9-27.
Litquake, San Francisco's Literary Festival. San Francisco, Calif. Oct. Oklahoma Independent Booksellers Association November
Nov. 6-9.
CIROBE, the Chicago International Remainder and Overstock Book Exposition.
Fri.-Mon.,. Chicago, Ill. Oldest but no longer largest of remainder shows in the
U.S. 2010 January Jan. 10-12/ Christian Trade Show Association International's Marketsquare – Atlanta Airport area. Jan. 13-14. IVBS -Inspirational Value Book Show - January, Nashville, TN. www.ivbshow.com Jan. 15-19. The American Library Association's Midwinter Conference - Philadelphia, PA. www.ala.org 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. April April 19-21. London Book Fair - www.londonbookfair.co.uk May May 17-20. The Museum Store Association's Retail Conference & Expo National Stationery Show. New York City. May 25-27. BookExpo America - www.bookexpoamerica.com June The Australian Booksellers Association's - Melbourne. The American Library Association - Anaheim, CA. 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. June 27-30. CBA/The International Christian Retail Show, St. Louis, Mo. www.christianretailshow.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.
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The
Southern Review is edited by Noel Griese. The author of 17 books and
numerous articles on various subjects, he has been a newspaper reporter
and editor and has taught English and journalism at the Universities of
Wisconsin and Georgia. Elected to both Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Kappa Phi,
he holds three degrees in English and journalism.
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your titles need to be represented. More than 50,000 bargain-priced titles
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