October 2011

Amazon Signs Up Authors, Writing Publishers Out of Deal

October 16 article at NYT.com

It has set up a flagship line run by a publishing veteran, Laurence Kirshbaum, to bring out brand-name fiction and nonfiction. It signed its first deal with the self-help author Tim Ferriss. Last week it announced a memoir by the actress and director Penny Marshall, for which it paid $800,000, a person with direct knowledge of the deal said.

Publishers say Amazon is aggressively wooing some of their top authors. And the company is gnawing away at the services that publishers, critics and agents used to provide.

Several large publishers declined to speak on the record about Amazon’s efforts. “Publishers are terrified and don’t know what to do,” said Dennis Loy Johnson of Melville House, who is known for speaking his mind.

Full article

October 17, 2011 by Amazon Authors Publishing

Do Androids Dream of Electric Authors?

Article about a publisher that uses software to create books on thousands of topics. The quality of the books is suspect. Article specifically mentions librarians and how they have to be on the lookout for these books so they do not waste acquisitions money on low quality information.

October 16, 2011 by Authors Libraries

Checking Out

Piece in the NYT by Shannon O’Neill. She is an archivist and reference librarian at the Atlantic City Free Public Library.

AS a librarian and archivist, I am often asked if I believe that, one day, libraries will disappear. While the present situation for many libraries is difficult — budget cuts, closings and furloughs — I think that libraries will persist.

One of my duties as an archivist is to document history. Given this, I cannot help but preserve the library artifacts that I find.

Full piece here. (Contains slide show of library items)

October 16, 2011 by Libraries

CSS ‘Paged Media’ Brings Book Smarts to the Web

What if you could flip through a regular news website like a magazine?

Håkon Wium Lie, Opera Software’s CTO and creator of cascading stylesheets, has proposed a new set of CSS tools that transform longer web pages into a more book-like experience, where the reader flips from page to page instead of scrolling down one long screen.

Lie’s proposal, the Generated Content for Paged Media standard, is a mouthful. But behind the awkward name lies an intriguing idea.

It’s a concept that’s gained considerable weight with the arrival of touchscreen tablets and smartphones, both of which lend themselves to very book-like reading experience. Indeed popular magazines, including Wired, all offer platform-native applications that mimic the reading experience of a book or magazine. That’s precisely what Lie wants to make possible on the web.

Full article at Wired.com

October 16, 2011 by Books Internet

Forget Managing Magazines: We Need an E-Book Fulfillment Center

Amazon did a wonderful thing this week: Not entirely out the kindness of their hearts, the huge store and cloud storage company gave the world (or at least Amazon.com customers) a place to keep track of their print magazine subscriptions, from wherever they bought them. The Amazon Print Magazine Subscription Manager is a nifty digital file cabinet that keeps track of those subscription numbers and end dates, and lets you manage your addresses or even re-up for another year — again, tithing nothing to Amazon itself.

I say it’s not entirely out the kindness of their hearts because even a loss leader that increases brand awareness and gently encourages loyalty can pay big dividends. And, what do you know! Turns out Amazon is already a clearing house for lots and lots of print magazines, and wants to sell even more digital subscriptions for Kindles, especially for that brand-new tablet. If you already think of Amazon for books, the company wants you to think of them first for magazines, too.

It’s ironic, though, that this is yet another example where the magazine part of the media business has it all over the book part. Let’s set Amazon’s management system aside. Compare the prevalence of all-access digital subscriptions, which allow the reader to pay one price and get media every which way, with how books are still sold. Every personal library is a island; owning one format of a book entitles you to exactly nothing else.

Full story at Wired.com

October 16, 2011 by Books EBooks Libraries

An ebook full of typos

Piece at Teleread.org about the ebook: Snuff (Author: Terry Pratchett)

Excerpt from Teleread: Here’s an ebook that didn’t go through the editorial process. HarperCollins should be ashamed of themselves.

October 14, 2011 by Books EBooks

Taylor Swift Donates Books to Reading PA Library

READING, Pennsylvania (AP) — Taylor Swift wants children in the Pennsylvania city of Reading to hit the books — and she’s made that easier by giving 6,000 volumes to the local library.

Librarians unveiled the donation from the Grammy-winning country singer Thursday. Swift grew up in nearby Wyomissing and wasn’t able to attend the event.

Swift partnered with publisher Scholastic Inc. to donate the books for children and young adults. The titles were chosen by local librarians.

Reading is a struggling city about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northwest of Philadelphia. Swift’s representatives told library officials she wanted to help economically troubled libraries.

Librarians say Swift’s books will be marked with a white star on the spine and a sticker inside. They say they hope Swift’s popularity will motivate more children and teens to read.

October 14, 2011 by Books Google Librarians Libraries

The Loss of a Valuable Journalistic Tool

For years, health care reporters have employed a government database called the National Practitioner Data Bank, containing information on malpractice payouts. The public version of the database hides the names of physicians, but after a reporter was able to identify an anonymous doctor, the public database was taken offline. Bob talks to Charles Ornstein of the Association of Health Care Journalists about why the database is important, and attempts by journalists to regain access to it.

Transcript here

MP3 file here:

October 13, 2011 by Uncategorized

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