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

Vol. 8, No. 8   August 2010

Index (scroll down for stories) 

  1. Only one U.S. book publisher listed in top 10 of world publishing
  2. Author of best-selling self-published novel ‘The Shack’ sues partners
  3. Breaking news from the book barons
  4. New baseball book weighs in at 75 lbs., priced at $3,000 a copy
  5. Salem Publishing announces launch of FamilyFiction
  6. Bookstores: Island Books creates a reading oasis on Mercer Island
  7. Penguin Canada chief ousted under allegations of sexual harassment
  8. Books to Movies Department
  9. New Twilight vampire film promoted with free outdoor screenings
10. Movie critic Ebert, fed by tube because of cancer, pens cookbook
11. The publishing revolution: News of e-books and other new media
12. Ron Paul’s e-books now available exclusively on Kindle
13. LibreDigital lands $8.1 million to accelerate delivery of e-books
14. Borders Group launches e-bookstore with titles from Kobo
15. LibreDigital buys Symtio electronic commerce unit from HarperCollins
16. Amazon, B&N lower Kindle, Nook prices under pressure from iPad
17. Graphic novels and comics news
18. Harvey Pekar, comics innovator, dead at 70
19. Indies are important part of comic book publishing in U.S.
20. Rob Lowe, Barbara Eden latest to join celebrity biography parade
21. Useful information and free services for writers
22. News about self-publishing and vanity presses
23. Marketing books: what’s new, what works and what doesn’t
24. How ‘Knife Music’ transited from Apple app to p-book and e-book
25. Christian Store Day coming on Oct. 23!
26. Publishers issue digital works to whet appetite for novels
27. Milestones: Records and news of note in book publishing
28. Kohlberg buys majority interest in Christian publisher Thomas Nelson
29. Major upcoming trade shows, book fairs and book festivals
 

1. Only one U.S. book publisher listed in top 10 of world publishing
 

Pearson has retained its position as the world's largest book publisher, according to a ranking of the largest international publishers.
 

Only one U.S. company was listed in the top 10, and that one company, McGraw-Hill, saw sales decline year on year from 2008 to 2009.
 

According to Ruediger Wischenbart, who compiles the data for French trade magazine Livres Hebdo, the companies at the top are those that have best adapted from national orientation to operating on a global scale.
 

Wischenbart stated: "With German Bertelsmann's acquisition of Random House in 1998, and French Hachette's ventures into the UK and the USA more recently, and with particularly Asian markets becoming part of the book game (with a tremendous rise in the popularity of manga in Europe and the U.S., and with China buying huge amounts of translation rights), publishing (has) became really international at last."
 

Although the U.S. has only one company in the top 10, eight of the top 10 publishers generate the majority of their book revenue within the U.S. And the U.S. has eight publishing houses in the 50 largest worldwide.
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The global top 10 by sales in millions of Euros:
 

  1 Pearson €5,290m
  2 Reed Elsevier €5,024m
  3 ThomsonReuters €3,813m
  4 Wolters Kluwer €3,425m
  5 Bertelsmann €2,969m
  6 Hachette Livre €2,273m
  7 Grupo Planeta €1,804m
  8 McGraw–Hill Education €1,666m
  9 De Agostini Editore €1,616m
10 Holtzbrinck n/a
 

The Livres Hebdo global ranking of the publishing industry was co-published by The Bookseller, Buchreport (Germany) and Publishers Weekly (U.S.). The ranking is based on publishers' reported revenues, and only based on "publishing" sales, including books, journals and professional information in commercially run databases. Research was completed in May 2010. Exchange rates used: (€1 = £0.904; = $1.434; = 132 Yen; = 1.5 Can$)
 

2. Author of best-selling self-published novel ‘The Shack’ sues partners

According to a story by Sarah Weinman in the July 13 Los Angeles Times, The Shack author William Paul Young is suing his former partners, Wayne Jacobsen and Brad Cummings, of Windblown Media, and Hachette Book Group has been sucked unwillingly into the litigation.

The dispute, focused on money but also involving copyright and movie rights issues, stems from the original working agreement between the partners, which was an oral understanding arrived at long before the success that led to sales of at least eight million copies in the U.S. alone.
 

Pastors Wayne Jacobsen and Brad Cummings discovered the book, originally written by the author to make peace with his family after he had had an affair. With the author, they created a start-up company, Windblown Media, to publish it. The novel sold a million copies in the first year, eventually ending up at No. 1 on the New York Times' trade paperback bestseller list.

Hachette Book Group got involved in May 2008. It cut a deal with Windblown Media to market and distribute the book. In the two years since, The Shack has become a 12-million-copy phenomenon worldwide, and the biggest Christian publishing sensation in decades.

When the three men finally signed a written contract immediately before partnering with Hachette, none of them were represented by lawyers, and their contract was based on a form contract provided to them by Hachette.

Last November, after a royalty audit, Young filed suit in a Ventura County, Calif., state court against Windblown Media and Hachette Book Group, alleging that "accounting improprieties have deprived" him "of over $8 million in proceeds" of sales (through December 2008 alone). Young calculates that through the end of 2008 The Shack "had generated over $36 million in profits" for the publishers.

Among his major points, he contends that high-discount royalties were applied too broadly; that his royalties should not have been deducted before a separate profit-share was calculated; and that his profit-share agreement also did not provide for distribution fees taken by Windblown and Hachette. He challenged the reserve for returns (12 percent of paperbacks and 24 percent of hardcovers), saying that "actual returns" have comprised "only 1.2 percent of paperback sales."

In his suit, Young asks the court to terminate his contract for breach and return his rights. ]

While HBG was named in the suit because under their joint venture agreement with Windblown they calculate and remit royalties, the publisher executes the accounting formula stipulated to them by Windblown.

The contract between Young and Windblown, attached to the lawsuit, has standard high-discount language ("notwithstanding the above royalties for copies sold at a discount of 55% or greater off the retailer price, premiums, and copies sold as a result of the Publisher's direct marketing programs, shall be 10% of net sales revenue for hardcover editions and 5% for all other editions, e.g. large print").

Young contends in the suit that "the high discount sales" exception in the publishing contract is designed to handle giveaway programs and book club sales, and was never intended to be used to cover such a large portion of the book's sales." According to a subsequent filing, Young is alleging that 75 percent of Windblown's sales and approximately 27 percent of Hachette's sales were treated as high-discount sales.

The agreement says that Windblown gets to reserve for "returns, actual and estimated." The definition of the profit-sharing deal is scant. It simply indicates royalties of 50 cents for each paper and one dollar for each hardcover, "plus one-third of the net profits of all activity generated by The Shack for Windblown Media." The contract does define "net sales revenue" as omitting "any commissions or fees to third party or distributors incurred in making such sales."

In April, partners Jacobsen and Cummings countersued Young in a California Federal Court, asking for in excess of $5 million in damages. They said in that filing that "Young has received well in excess of $10.7 million in royalties and profits."

As part of their response, Jacobsen and Cummings filed a supplemental registration with the copyright office claiming shared copyright in the book. Their suit contends that they worked for over a year on Young's manuscript, comprising "four major rewrites in which new insights, plot points and dialogue were added to make the story more compelling." They claim that they were not named as co-authors and co-copyright holders only because Young had written the original "as a gift for his family, it was very important to him that he be identified as the author."

They let Young register the copyright in his name and by their account he agreed to sign over film rights to a jointly-held LLC. But that transfer was never executed, and they now allege that Young has been "secretly negotiating" to sell the film rights to someone else.

According to the countersuit filing, "Young announced (in February 2008) that he wanted to add Jacobsen and Cummings' names to the cover of the book as co-authors, as should have been done from the first place. However, when Young subsequently shared this announcement with his family, Young's wife expressed extreme anguish over the change and pressured Young not to change the cover page."

On March 11, Jacobsen and Cummings asserted their claim to co-authorship with an amended copyright filing to the Library of Congress. Meanwhile, the book keeps selling and Hachette has a lot of money payable to all three in some form and didn't know how to disburse the money without causing more legal problems. So Hachette filed their own complaint with a California Federal court, and gave just under $1 million for the quarter ending March 31 to the court's clerk to hold. They noted in their suit that "as a result of disputes that have arisen concerning the allocation of royalties and certain other proceeds from the sales of the book, Hachette requires the guidance of this Court to determine how much of these funds should be paid to Windblown and how much should be paid to Jacobsen, Cummings and Young."

Some of the issues are due to be argued in court by the end of August.

3. Breaking news from the book barons

The position of Canada’s last full-time daily newspaper book editor has been abolished. Geoff Pevere, the book critic for the Toronto Star, has been reassigned as a general entertainment columnist. The paper's weekly book review feature will be done either by one freelancer or a stable of freelancers, Quill & Quire reported. The position, Q&Q noted, was Canada's "sole remaining full-time, salaried book review post."… Detective novels from Japan, Nigeria, Germany and Korea are pouring into the U.S. as publishers hunt for the next Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, says Alexandra Alter in a June article in the Wall Street Journal. Newly translated books still make up just three percent of titles released in the U.S., according to Bowker, which tracks the publishing industry, and translated fiction and poetry make up less than one percent. In many European countries, translated books account for 25 to 40 percent of titles. A recent string of surprise best sellers has eroded the notion that Americans prefer home-grown authors. The late Stieg Larsson's trilogy has sold more than six million copies in the U.S.
 

4. New baseball book weighs in at 75 lbs., priced at $3,000 a copy

A new book on baseball, The Official Major League Baseball Opus, has more than 1,000 photographs and illustrations. A limited edition of the 75-pound book will sell for $3,000, abridged versions for $295.
Major League Baseball in July entered the book market with the tome that traces the game’s history through 110,000 words and more than 1,000 photographs and illustrations.
 

The leather-bound book comes out in a limited edition of 1,000 copies, packaged in a silk-covered clamshell case. The huge volume is aimed at teams, corporations, wealthy fans, museums and collectors.

An abridged 26-pound version is available for $295.
 

“I think we’ll sell 1,000 fairly quickly,” said Don Hintze, the vice president for publishing for Major League Baseball. “We think the smaller version, which is more for the masses, will do extremely well. We’ve gotten a lot of interest from clubs on the smaller book that they can sell to season-ticket holders, or give as gifts.” (Source: Richard Sandomir, The New York Times, July 9, 2010)
 

5. Salem Publishing announces launch of FamilyFiction
 

This fall, Salem Publishing will launch FamilyFiction, a resource for helping consumers discover Christian fiction through a bimonthly digital magazine, email newsletter and website.
 

FamilyFiction’s coverage will span Amish, Historical, Suspense, Speculative, Romance, Contemporary and Young Adult fiction, with timely news updates, up-to-date release lists, reviews, interviews, book trailers and more.
 

“FamilyFiction addresses a great need,” says Michael Miller, general manager of Salem Publishing. “We look forward to exposing more and more Christian fiction readers to these great authors.”
 

“There is a reason Jesus taught in parables,” said Robin Lee Hatcher, best-selling author of the Sisters of Bethlehem Springs series (Zondervan). “The power of story is that it puts us into the lives of the characters, letting us see and experience things through those characters. In the process, we learn and sometimes are changed.”
 

“Fiction is a powerful tool in the hands of believers,” notes Francine Rivers, New York Times bestselling author of Her Mother’s Hope (Tyndale House).
 

 “I applaud Salem Communications in the launch of FamilyFiction,” says DiAnn Mills, author of The Call of Duty series (Tyndale) and the historical romance A Woman Called Sage (Zondervan). “This new resource will be helpful to me in my various roles - writer, promoter of Christian fiction, trainer and encourager of authors - and avid reader!”
 

Salem Publishing plans to launch the FamilyFiction digital magazine, newsletter and comprehensive website in Fall 2010.
 

6. Bookstores: Island Books creates a reading oasis on Mercer Island
 

Seattle Times book editor Mary Ann Guinn recently saluted Roger and Nancy Page, the owners of Island Books, who received the 2010 Mercer Island Rotary Citizen Achievement award for their contribution to the Mercer Island community.
 

For two decades, Page and his wife and business partner, Nancy Page, have kept Mercer Island in books. The store, one of 34 nominees, was cited for creating an "oasis of reading" - book nights for groups, donations to many causes (especially schools and literacy), book clubs, writing contests and one of the biggest Harry Potter parties west of the Mississippi.
 

Island Books was founded in 1973 by Lola Deane; Roger Page began working there in the 1980s. Before that, he was a teacher in the preschool unit of a local institution.
 

From his first days at the shop, he says, he loved working with books, but he also developed a fascination with the stories of the customers, and how they dovetailed with the stories in the books.

The article saluting the Pages did not mention that Roger Page comes from a family of considerable importance in American publishing. Roger is a descendant of Arthur W. Page, perhaps the most influential public relations practitioner of the 20th century.
 

In 1900, Walter Hines Page, Arthur’s father, with Frank N. Doubleday created the publishing house of Doubleday, Page & Co. Arthur joined the firm in 1905. In 1913, when President Woodrow Wilson named Walter Page the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, Arthur became the Page at Doubleday, Page & Co.
 

Arthur left the publishing house in 1926 to become the public relations vice president of AT&T.

During WW II, Arthur Page headed the Joint Army and Navy Committee on Welfare and Recreation, which oversaw armed forces morale activities such as Stars & Stripes newspaper, Yank magazine, Armed Forces Motion Pictures, the Red Cross and the USO.
 

In 1944, Secretary of War Henry Stimson sent Arthur Page to England to oversee troop information for the Normandy Invasion. When he returned, Stimson asked him to write the news releases announcing the first use of the atom bomb at Hiroshima for release in the names of President Harry S Truman and Henry Stimson. The Newseum in Washington chose that as the most important story of the 20th century.
 

Page retired in 1947, but was active to his death in a number of projects including the founding and operation of the Crusade for Freedom and Radio Free Europe, both fronts for the CIA to foment revolution in the Middle European shatter zone. 
 

7. Penguin Canada chief ousted under allegations of sexual harassment
 

David Davidar, Indian-born president and CEO of Penguin Canada, who announced in June that he was voluntarily leaving the publishing giant, was actually terminated following a sexual harassment complaint by a former employee.
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In 1985, Davidar, then a 27-year-old visitor from India, was one of about 75 students in Harvard’s Radcliffe Publishing Procedures Course, a prestigious program designed to groom future movers and shakers of the publishing world.
 

On the first day of the six-week course, the class assembled for an address by Peter Mayer, then president of publishing giant Penguin’s global operations. After the lecture, Mayer spoke with Davidar. By the time their conversation had ended, Davidar found himself anointed as the man to head up Penguin’s planned incursion into India.
 

When Davidar returned to India from Harvard in 1985, he had $10,000 to establish Penguin India in a small flat in Delhi. At the end of 2001, the operation’s 90 employees were publishing 130 books a year and had built a backlist of 700 titles.
 

“It was an extremely adventurous and ambitious thing for any company to do at that time,” says Pepper. “There certainly wasn’t much English-language publishing in India or China or anywhere like that at the time. He started it. He developed it. And he turned it into a huge success.”
 

Davidar’s stable of writers represented a Who’s Who of the subcontinent’s coincidentally burgeoning literary scene: Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, Kiran Desai, Arundhati Roy and many more.
 

It was Seth, author of the international bestseller A Suitable Boy, who persuaded Davidar to write his own novel. Davidar, apparently not wanting to trade on his by then powerful publishing reputation, pitched the resulting book to other publishers under the pseudonym S. H. Jeyakar, an anagram of his middle name, Jeyasekharan. The House of Blue Mangoes, published in 2002, was a New York Times notable book and has been translated into 16 languages.
 

It was also during that time that Davidar met his wife, Rachna, whose family owned a Delhi bookshop where Davidar was a regular customer. Since the couple’s move to Toronto, she has stayed in the business, starting part-time at Nicholas Hoare and eventually being named manager of the short-lived McNally-Robinson outlet in Don Mills.
 

Then, on June 8, it all came crashing down. Joined by Penguin Group chairman John Makinson, Davidar said on that day that he was leaving the company to “pursue his successful writing career and other projects.”
 

But the next day, Lisa Rundle, former director of digital publishing and foreign rights at Penguin Canada, filed a $523,000 lawsuit in a court against Penguin, alleging that she faced sexual harassment for three years and then an outright assault by Davidar at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October.
 

In the lawsuit, the Toronto woman alleged that when she complained about Davidar to her superiors, she was fired.
 

She has claimed $423,000 in damages from Penguin for her dismissal when she complained about Davidar. She is asking for another $100,000 in damages from Davidar personally for her sexual harassment.
 

The lawsuit forced both Davidar and Penguin to change their statement on the reasons for his departure from Penguin. In a statement on June 11, Davidar admitted, “At Penguin's request, I agreed to publicly state that my departure was voluntary. The truth is that a former colleague accused me of sexual harassment and Penguin terminated my employment.”
 

However, he denied charges of sexual harassment.
 

Penguin Canada also issued a statement, saying, “Mr. Davidar was asked to leave the company last month and his departure was announced on June 8. Mr. Davidar will play no further role in the company.”
 

Penguin has denied the woman's charge that she was fired for complaining against Davidar.

In a statement, Penguin said Rundle resigned from her position as director of contracts and rights after “having declined to pursue other career opportunities within the organization.”

Rundle’s lawyer, Bobbi Olsen, dismissed the company’s claim, saying her client had spent eight years working her way up and had expressed that she wanted to continue working for the company, just not directly with Davidar.
 

Quoting the woman's lawsuit, the Globe and Mail reported that it is accompanied by many lusty emails allegedly sent by Davidar to her in which he says that she is “utterly gorgeous,” “a vision in pink sipping a champagne cocktail,” and that he “could do very little except think of (her),” and that she should not be “stubborn” or “fight” him.
 

The lawsuit states that “Davidar over time became more and more intense with his persistent protestations of lust and desire for Lisa... and in return she became increasingly disturbed and afraid,” culminating in an outright assault on her at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October.
 

According to the lawsuit's statement of claim, Davidar appeared at her hotel room door (in Frankfurt), “wearing excessive cologne, with buttons on his shirt undone down his waist.

“Lisa stood in her hotel room into which Davidar had bullied his way, with her arms crossed, still near the door, and asked what he needed to discuss.
 

“He told her to relax and just let him come in. She refused and said she wanted to go to sleep.”

When she climbed on a windowsill to avoid her boss, “he forcibly pulled her off the ledge and grabbed her by the wrists, forcing his tongue into her mouth.”
 

The allegations have not been proven in court and Davidar has not yet filed his defense.

“There’s so much I want to say,” Davidar’s wife, Rachna, told the Toronto Star.

“We’ll get through this together,” says Rachna. They’ve been together for 15 years. “He can’t talk,” she says, gently. “Please don’t ask him.”
 

Davidar, 52, has held a series of prominent jobs in the publishing world. He led Penguin Canada for the past six years. His authors included Margaret MacMillan, Joseph Boyden and Michael Ignatieff. Until fired, he was also head of Penguin’s international division.
 

Meanwhile, in advance of a formal reply to the court, Davidar's attorney, Peter Downard, said in a statement that "the public attacks require Mr. Davidar's response." His story is that "Davidar had a consensual, flirtatious relationship that grew out of a close friendship with a colleague" and they imply that Rundle turned it into a dispute after he decided "their relationship should be confined to business."

Davidar says that in 2007 "their friendship became flirtatious" and he "suggested to Ms. Rundle that their relationship become more romantic." The statement claims ebbs and flows in that flirtation, but says "throughout this friendship Mr. Davidar would ask Ms. Rundle if she liked the attention he was paying her, and she indicated she did."
 

By his account "their personal social friendship resumed" in August 2008. He says they kissed twice, both times at the 2009 Frankfurt Book Fair, and asserts that Rundle said "she had enjoyed their kisses in Frankfurt, whether or not they were ever repeated."

Designed to support their account of the relationship, Davidar and Downard say in the statement that "at Christmas in 2009, Ms. Rundle gave Mr. Davidar a gift of cream-filled biscuits. On other occasions Ms. Rundle gave Mr. Davidar chocolates, pastries, a scarf and socks."

The release says that "in February of 2010, following the death of his father,  Mr. Davidar took stock of his life. He felt he could no longer continue his personal relationship with Ms. Rundle. He spoke with her and told her their relationship should be confined to business."

As for former employee Samantha Francis, who made similar claims, Davidar admits to inappropriate behavior without seeing it that way: "Mr. Davidar engaged in flirtatious banter with her for a short period of time. He did not engage in any conduct toward Ms. Francis that he knew or should have known was unwelcome." He says that Francis eventually indicated in writing that they "had a personal misunderstanding which had been resolved."
 

8. Books to Movies Department
 

David Bowers will direct the sequel Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2: Roderick Rules, based on the book series by Jeff Kinney. The movie adds an “e” to Rodrick. The cast will again include Zachary Gordon, Steve Zahn and Rachael Harris. According to the Hollywood Reporter, "Fox 2000 is moving fast on the sequel, hoping to capitalize on the slow-burn success of the first movie, which opened March 19 and went on to gross almost $64 million domestically. The movie was made for a modest $15 million and Fox 2000 is making the sequel for the same amount." Thor Freudenthal, who directed the first movie, has elected not to return.
 

9. New Twilight vampire film promoted with free outdoor screenings
 

Fans of the Stephenie Meyer “Twilight” vampire book series in select U.S. cities had an opportunity to see the first two Twilight films - based on her books - at free outdoor screenings on June 26. The screenings were held on the night of a partial lunar eclipse.
 

The Wrap reported that "celestial occurrences don't usually play a prominent role in film advertising," but Summit Entertainment and AOL Media partnered for "Twilight Night" to promote the June 30 release of the third film based on the Meyer books, “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.”

AOL's Moviefone offered a live-stream of "the events taking place in Philadelphia and San Diego, through AOL's Moviefone.” The live-stream included interviews with the cast and a sneak peek of “Eclipse.". The other lunar eclipse screening cities were Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Miami, Phoenix, Portland, Salt Lake City, St. Louis, Seattle and Washington, D.C.
 

10. Movie critic Ebert, fed by tube because of cancer, pens cookbook
 

Roger Ebert, best known as the movie critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, has been robbed by cancer of his ability to eat. He’s fed by a tube. But that hasn’t stopped him from cooking for others - or from writing a cookbook based on an appliance he’s come to love, the rice cooker.
 

Four years after cancer surgery left him unable to speak or eat, Ebert is publishing a cookbook dedicated to rice cookers, an appliance he calls "The Pot," and champions as an answer for those strapped for cash, time and counter space.
 

The idea for the book came after a 2008 blog post he wrote about rice cookers prompted hundreds of comments, with many readers including their favorite recipes.
 

The book includes more than two dozen recipes for dishes such as chili, risotto, jambalaya and oatmeal. He took a witty and funny tone when writing it; he says he didn't want it to sound too specialized or difficult.
 

"The basic recipe is: throw everything in the pot and slam on the lid," he advises. The book, The Pot and How to Use It. The Mystery and Romance of the Rice Cooker, will be released Sept. 21.

Ebert’s TV movie review show partner, Gene Siskel, died in 1999 from complications following surgery to remove a growth from his brain.
 

"We used to take the rice cooker almost everywhere we went," his wife, Chaz Ebert, said. (Source: Caryn Rousseau, The Associated Press)
 

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

James Patterson has sold 1,141,273 e-book units, Hachette Book Group reports. That makes him the first novelist believed to have surpassed the one-million mark for e-book sales. Hachette said Patterson’s biggest seller by far is his most recent novel I, Alex Cross, which was published both electronically and in hardcover last fall. Since his first novel in 2007, Patterson's books have sold more than 205 million copies… PC World reports that a recent study by Dr. Jakob Nielsen, of the Nielsen Norman Group, "compared the reading times of 24 users on the Kindle 2, an iPad using the iBooks application, a PC monitor and good old fashioned paper. The study found that reading on an electronic tablet was up to 10.7 percent slower than reading a printed book. Despite the slower reading times, Nielsen found that users preferred reading books on a tablet device compared to the paper book. The computer monitor, meanwhile, was universally hated as a reading platform among all test subjects."… Simon & Schuster has released an "instant e-book," Truman Fires MacArthur, based upon David McCullough’s account of the showdown between President Harry S. Truman and General Douglas MacArthur. Excerpted from McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography Truman, the e-book depicts a conflict that parallels that faced by President Obama in firing his top commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal… International best-selling author Dr. Bill Quain selected FastPencil to publish his next book Permission to Profit. Quain has sold over two million books. Permission to Profit is available for purchase in print for $13.95 or as an eBook for $9.99… Random House Children’s Books launched the complete Magic Tree House series in e-book in June, making the entire series available digitally for the first time. All 43 titles currently available in the best-selling Magic Tree House fiction series are now be available in the U.S. and Canada wherever Random House e-books are sold. Mary Pope Osborne’s Magic Tree House series has sold 70 million copies in North America and has been translated into 28 different languages in 31 countries.
 

12. Ron Paul’s e-books now available exclusively on Kindle
 

Amazon.com has announced that RosettaBooks has released four books in e-book format by bestselling author and congressman Ron Paul exclusively in the Kindle Store. The books - A Foreign Policy of Freedom, Pillars of Prosperity, The Case for Gold and Abortion and Liberty - are available as e-books for the first time, and they are being sold exclusively to the Kindle Store for one year. Customers can download the books from the Kindle Store for $9.99, and can read them on their Kindle, Kindle DX, iPhone, iPod touch, BlackBerry, PC, Mac, iPad and soon, Android phones.
 

13. LibreDigital lands $8.1 million to accelerate delivery of e-books
 

LibreDigital, Inc. has closed an $8.1 million Series C funding round led by new investor S3 Ventures, with participation from existing investors Adams Capital Management and Triangle Peak Partners.
 

The company's other key investors include HarperCollins Publishers, The New York Times Company and Noro-Moseley Partners.
 

The new capital infusion will be used by LibreDigital to expand e-book services for publishers looking to capitalize on the unprecedented demand for e-books, which is being driven by the release of new devices like the Apple iPad.
 

In addition to being a top Apple e-book aggregator, LibreDigital also powers the delivery of content to other digital devices and marketplaces, including Barnes & Noble Nook, Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader, Google Editions and many more.
 

"The popularity of the iPad has accelerated the demand for e-books at a much faster pace than many in the industry had previously predicted," said Brian R. Smith, managing director of S3 Ventures. "We're making this investment to help LibreDigital speed the delivery of products that help the world's top publishers and e-reader manufacturers bring the highest quality reading experience to digital consumers."
 

LibreDigital enables publishers, distributors and device manufacturers to securely market and deliver content across an expanding number of digital channels, including e-readers, tablets, smart phones, social networks and online stores. The company offers solutions designed to deliver digital books, newspapers and magazines in the highest quality format possible.
 

"This year, sales of e-books are expected to double to more than $700 million in the U.S. alone," said Russell P. Reeder, president and CEO of LibreDigital, Inc. "This funding will be used to accelerate the delivery of e-books, and expand our technology offerings to include new solutions that help publishers better promote and sell books to digital consumers."
 

Working with the world's top publishers, content distributors and device manufacturers, LibreDigital powers billions of page views to millions of consumers worldwide.
 

14. Borders Group launches e-bookstore with titles from Kobo
 

Borders Group launched its long-awaited e-bookstore in July, with titles provided by Kobo, the e-book and e-reader retailer in which Borders has a stake.
 

The Wall Street Journal said that for consumers, "the entrance of Borders into the e-book marketplace may mean lower prices on some titles. Although five of the six major book publishers have converted to an 'agency' pricing model, setting their own retail prices, Bertelsmann AG's Random House publishing group and many smaller publishers still employ the traditional wholesale model - meaning Borders could choose to discount some titles aggressively from these publishers in a bid to drive traffic to its website."
 

15. LibreDigital buys Symtio electronic commerce unit from HarperCollins
 

Texas-based LibreDigital Inc. is buying an electronic commerce operation from HarperCollins, one of its biggest customers.
 

The purchase of Symtio adds e-commerce capabilities to LibreDigital’s electronic book publishing operations. It’s the company’s first acquisition. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
 

LibreDigital sells software that lets publishers deliver content to readers across various digital devices, including e-book readers, tablet computers and smart phones.
 

In May, the company raised $8.1 million from investors including S3 Ventures, Adams Capital Management and Triangle Park Partners to accelerate its services.
 

16. Amazon, B&N lower Kindle, Nook prices under pressure from iPad
 

Barnes & Noble in mid-June surprised the industry by announcing a price reduction of its popular 3G Nook from $259 to $199, while unveiling a new device that connects to the Internet via wi-fi networks at $149.
 

Rival Amazon a few hours later announced a price reduction for its popular Kindle from $259 to $189.

Experts agree that sales of digital book readers will register strong growth this year. Forrester estimates that 6.6 million units will be marketed versus 3.1 million last year.
 

Bank Of America Merrill Lynch recently raised its sales estimate for 2010 from 2.5 iPads to 3.75 million units.

17. Graphic novels and comics news
 

While manga (Japanese comics, pronounced “mahn-guh”) still have more than $140 million in annual sales and continue to be a significant part of the American comics market, not all is well with the brand. Viz Media, one of the largest U.S. manga publishers, recently laid off 40 percent of its staff, according to Publishers Weekly.  DC Comics shut down its manga imprint, CMX, and indie manga publishers Go! Comi and Aurora Publishing quietly shut their doors… Japanese e-book publisher Bitway has invested $750,000 in Crunchyroll, the San Francisco-based website that streams anime and live-action Asian movies. A major distributor of electronic books, including manga, in Japan, Bitway hopes to work with Crunchyroll to develop a comics-distribution platform overseas, with an emphasis on the United States and Canada. Crunchyroll launched in 2006 as a for-profit site, and featured among its content illegally hosted user-uploaded fansubs and bootleg anime. But in 2009, following a $4 million investment from venture-capital firm Venrock, Crunchyroll began offering only licensed content. The website reportedly attracts six million unique visitors a month… DC has decided to enter the world of digital publishing. The company and its parent, Warner Bros., have announced that DC will partner with digital comics platform comiXology… PlayStation Network is beginning to offer comics in digital form to consumers. The company offers a free app to read comics on iPhone, iPod and iPad devices. The application is available in Apple’s iTunes Store. Some of the comics that will be available digitally include classic DC, Vertigo and Wildstorm titles. Pricing for the digital titles will be tiered from $.99 to $2.99 an issue.
 

18. Harvey Pekar, comics innovator, dead at 70
 

Harvey Pekar, author of the autobiographical comic-book series “American Splendor,” was found dead in his Cleveland Heights, Ohio, home on July 12. He was 70 years old.

Mr. Pekar ushered in a new age of autobiographical realism to comic books and graphic novels.
He enjoyed a brief period of TV stardom as an occasional guest on David Letterman’s NBC talk show, and his comic-book series “American Splendor” inspired a 2003 movie starring Paul Giamatti as Pekar.
 

He spent most of his adult life working at a civil-service job as a filing clerk in Cleveland, Ohio, writing comics in his spare time. He loved jazz and collected vinyl albums from thrift sales and used record- and bookstores.
 

When Pekar began publishing “American Splendor” in 1976, the title was flamingly ironic. Pekar was not living a splendid life by any means. Rather than portray the life of superheroes, in typical comic book style, Pekar depicted the reality of life in the working-class.
 

He wrote detailed stories about his life in Cleveland, and enlisted artists who appreciated his form of social realism to draw them.
 

After the success of Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus, published in hardcover in 1986, the rise of the graphic novel as a commercial genre helped Pekar to continue publishing “Splendor” with a variety of publishers, including one of the biggest, DC Comics and its Vertigo imprint.
 

Pekar’s 1994 book Our Cancer Year, written with his wife Joyce Brabner, chronicled his struggle with lymphoma, and Brabner’s own bouts of illness.
 

19. Indies are important part of comic book publishing in U.S.
 

Comic book and graphic novel publishing in the U.S. is dominated by two companies, DC Comics and Marvel. Together they account for well over half of all comic book publishing in the U.S.
 

However, numerous smaller independent and specialized publishers make up much of the rest of the industry
 

Archie Comics titles include "Josie and the Pussycats" and "Sabrina the Teen Witch" in addition to the Archie series. They have sold over 1.5 billion comic books.

Dark Horse Comics began publishing in the 1980s and has specialized in comic book renditions of hit movies and television series such as "Star Wars" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", as well as superheroes ("Hellboy") and other creator-owned titles.

Image Comics was formed in the 1990s to unify several independent comic book artist studios, and includes such titles as "The Crow," "Savage Dragon" and "Witchblade." Image also represents the work of comic artists Todd McFarlane, Erik Larsen and Marc Silvestri.

Oni Press is relatively new publisher that has quickly become known for offerings including properties like "Jay and Silent Bob," "Whiteout" and "My Inner Bimbo." Oni has a sister firm, Closed on Mondays.

Slave Labor Graphics publishes "Milk and Cheese," "Dork" and "Emo Boy." The company also specializes in producing a number of comic titles geared to a more mature audience, such as "Johnny the Homicidal Maniac" and "Lenore."

Fantagraphics Books specializes in promoting comics as a legitimate form of art and literature.

San Francisco-based Viz Media (owned by a Japanese company) is a leading publisher of manga for the English-speaking audience, offering magazines, graphic novels and DVDs for all ages.

Tokyopop was founded in the late 1990s to bring Asian popular culture to America. They publish manga magazines and novels, including "Sailor Moon" and "Ice Blade."

Antarctic Press is a comic book publisher in Texas that also publishes manga titles. Since the 1980s, they have released over 850 titles, including "Ninja High School" and "Gold Digger."
 

20. Rob Lowe, Barbara Eden latest to join celebrity biography parade
 

"I Dream of Jeannie" star Barbara Eden announced her book plans on June 29. Jeannie Out of the Bottle is due in spring 2011. Eden is working with a collaborator, she told the New York Times. Other than the "Jeannie" show, the book's publisher says, topics will include the birth of a still-born son; Eden's relationship with an allegedly abusive addict husband; and her son Matthew Ansara's drug-related death in 2001, at age 35.
 

Meanwhile, teen idol Rob Lowe says he actually intends to write Stories I Only Tell My Friends, due out next May.  
 

Demi Moore is also in the parade, with a book planned for 2012. She’s reportedly getting a $2 million advance.
 

Rob Lowe became a teenage heartthrob with his role in “The Outsiders” in 1983. Since then, he has done more than three dozen films and appeared in a number of hit television shows. Now the 46-year-old actor is set to talk about his experience as a father and actor.
 

Henry Holt and Co. President Stephen Rubin describes Lowe’s book as a “mid-career meditation.” Previously, Lowe signed a million dollar deal at Twelve with Jonathan Karp, but there was a writer’s strike, so the actor was not sure how much he would get paid after the strike was over.
 

Lowe’s present literary agent, Jennifer Rudolph Welsh, has revealed that the actor gave the book to Rubin in a “confidential submission,” since after the strike Karp moved to Simon and Schuster.
 

21. Useful information and free services for writers
 

Cemetery Dance Publications has announced a free eBook edition of The Painted Darkness by Brian James Freeman will be available immediately to all readers, almost four months before the book’s hardcover edition will be published. The free eBook, which contains the complete text of the spooky new novella, can be downloaded at DownloadTheDarkness.com for a limited time.
 

22. News about self-publishing and vanity presses
 

Boyd Morrison, whose book The Ark was rejected by a few dozen publishers, has found success in e-publishing. He reports that the book hit number one on the Kindle store's technothriller bestseller list, finishing higher than such established authors as Tom Clancy. "In three months, my three books sold 7,500 copies and were selling at a rate of 4,000 books per month," he says… Brunonia Barry's initially self-published novel The Lace Reader was picked up by William Morrow in a $2 million, two-book deal…
 

23. Marketing books: what’s new, what works and what doesn’t
 

Wondering if a book trailer on YouTube will help you sell your book? The odds are against it. Before producing your clip, you might read an article in the July 9 New York Times by Pamela Paul at NYT. According to a June survey of 7,561 book buyers by the Codex Group, only 0.2 percent of the book-buying respondents discovered their last book through a video book trailer, and only 0.1 percent were persuaded to buy their last book that way. But there are exceptions. Take Kelly Corrigan’s Middle Place. Released in 2008, the memoir of cancer and caregiving briefly hit the best-seller list, then dropped. Corrigan then narrated a video clip on the power of female friendship and posted it online. But first she showed the clip to her editor at Hyperion. What followed was a carefully orchestrated stealth campaign. Hyperion employees e-mailed the clip to about 30 people. It went viral, producing so many Amazon orders that Hyperion had to reship hardcovers. To date, the trailer has had nearly five million views and the book has sold more than 300,000 copies… HSN (The Home Shopping Network) plans to stage a three-day promotion of the new Julia Roberts film adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert's book Eat Pray Love. Variety reported that "the promotion is the first time that HSN has helped Hollywood market a movie." HSN will devote 72 hours of airtime to the movie. The promotion will begin Aug. 6, "with each day revolving around products that relate to one of the three locations - India, Italy, Bali - that Roberts' character visits in a quest for self-discovery following a divorce." The movie is scheduled for an August 13 release.
 

24. How ‘Knife Music’ transited from Apple app to p-book and e-book
 

David Carnoy, an executive editor at CNET.com, recently described in a Huffington Post article how his book Knife Music went from a rejected Apple app to a conventional paper (p-book) and e-book.
 

All this started before the Apple iPad tablet and the iBook Store were introduced. Back then, to get a book into an iPhone, you had to convert it into an approved Apple application.

In December 2008, Carnoy had a Romanian developer, Alex Brie, convert his manuscript into an Apple app. He then submitted his self-published mystery novel, Knife Music, as a book app to Apple’s App Store.
 

He was stunned to learn his app was rejected for having "objectionable content" – a few words the Apple censors didn’t like.
 

The book wasn’t all that racy, Carnoy says - although it does have some mature themes, such as teen suicide and male doctors' sometimes uneasy relationships with their female patients. But it wasn't any more risqué than many popular novels, or the lyrics to all those rap songs and R-rated movies in Apple’s iTunes store.
 

Carnoy took the story to Internet outlets, where anything about Apple, especially if it’s negative, is likely to go viral. All the major tech sites picked up on the story, including his own CNET News as well as Gizmodo, and some more mainstream publications.

Carnoy self-published the work after some close calls with major publishers, or so his agent said.

He still wanted the book to be an Apple app, so he stripped out every naughty word in the book. Once he did so, his app was approved.
 

When the app was accepted, the book quickly shot to No. 7 in the free book apps list, and stayed in the top 100 for four months until he took it down. During that time, over 1,000 people a week were downloading the e-book and he was getting emails from readers in places as far away as Malta.

All that awareness helped sales of the paperback, which he published through Amazon’s Booksurge and on the Kindle, where he was selling it for $3.99 and it briefly hit No. 1 in the legal thriller category.
 

After a little over four and half months on the market, a local TV station in New York did a story on the book, which led to some renewed interest from publishers and an eventual contract from The Overlook Press, which published Knife Music in hardcover, with an e-book edition from Penguin, which distributes Overlook titles.
 

His developer then submitted a new, uncensored Knife Music iPhone/iPad app - about 40 percent of the book, not the full book, for free -and it was approved, with a NC-17 rating.
 

Carnoy thinks that standalone, text-based book apps are a dying breed, but the future is bright for more graphically rich and interactive book apps. He also put the excerpt up on Scribd for a limited time.
 

25. Christian Store Day coming on Oct. 23!
 

In an unprecedented cooperative effort, industry publishers and music companies are coming together to create consumer awareness of Christian stores and the products they carry with a national Christian Store Day promotion on Saturday, Oct. 23.
 

The promotion was unveiled at the International Christian Retail Show June 27-30 in St. Louis.
 

The event will include advertising and publicity, and participating vendors are developing exclusive product offerings only available at Christian stores on that day or during a promotional week. Some retailers are planning a week of promotions either before or after the event day.
 

Vendors are working on providing artists and authors to be at Christian stores, plus provide personal endorsements of Christian stores and their purposes. A ministry initiative is being developed as part of the promotion.
 

Retailers might include special e-mail marketing and supporting media advertising to coordinate with catalog promotions, special offers to best customers, major event planning or other strategies.
 

The event was initially driven by industry music companies desiring to promote Christian stores similar to how general-market independent music stores promoted Music Store Day. Because Christian stores provide broader product selections than these stores, publishers and other vendors joined in the celebration. The music store promotion is in its fourth year and has become a very successful campaign for them, according to organizers.
 

26. Publishers issue digital works to whet appetite for novels
 

On June 1, Toronto-based Harlequin Enterprises, a unit of media company Torstar Corp., gave away e-book copies of Julie Kagawa's Winter's Passage. The 15,000-word bridge novella will hopefully build an audience for Kagawa's February debut novel, The Iron King, and her second teen novel, The Iron Daughter, to be released on July 27, the publisher said.
 

"The purpose is to keep her audience interested while building their excitement for the next book," said Malle Vallik, director of digital content for Harlequin Enterprises.
 

But the story doesn’t end with the e-book giveaway. Harlequin will offer Winter's Passage at $2.99 beginning in late August.
 

In a separate bridge campaign, Ballantine Books, an imprint of Bertelsmann AG's Random House, plans to publish in September a digital short story, priced at $1.99, from thriller writer Steve Berry. The digital short story is being marketed as a bridge to the next book in an established series.
 

The story is intended to attract new and old readers alike to Berry's ninth novel, The Emperor's Tomb, which goes on sale Nov. 23.
 

The story features one of Berry's established characters, Cassiopeia Vitt. She will also appear in The Emperor's Tomb, along with Berry's main character, Cotton Malone. (Source: Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, Wall Street Journal)
 

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

Seen the Glory: A Novel of the Battle of Gettysburg by John Hough Jr. (Simon and Schuster) has won the 2010 W. Y. Boyd Literary Award for Excellence in Military Fiction. The $5,000 award honors "the best fiction set in a period when the United States was at war" and aims to recognize "the service of American veterans and encourage the writing and publishing of outstanding war-related fiction."… Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall has won the inaugural £25,000 (US$37,037) Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction. BBC News reported that the book was praised by the judging panel as "compulsively readable" during a ceremony at Sir Walter Scott's home in Abbotsford, Scottish Borders. The Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch, descendants of Scott, sponsored the prize. "This is as good as the historical novel gets--immersive, constantly engaging, beautifully crafted, and compulsively readable," the judges added.
 

28. Kohlberg buys majority interest in Christian publisher Thomas Nelson
 

Thomas Nelson has announced that an investor group led by Kohlberg & Company has acquired a majority of its stock.
 

According to a press release issued by Thomas Nelson, the investment will significantly improve the publisher’s capital structure and eliminate the majority of its long-term debt.
 

In connection with the investment, Thomas Nelson also announced the addition of several new directors to its board, including senior executives of Kohlberg & Company as well as other leading media and publishing executives - most notably, Jane Friedman, current CEO and co-founder of Open Road Integrated Media and former CEO of HarperCollins Worldwide. Michael Hyatt, Thomas Nelson’s CEO, will also become chairman of the board of directors.
 

Hyatt said, “We are very excited about what this means for Thomas Nelson’s future in the rapidly evolving publishing industry. We are eager to start working with Kohlberg and our other new board members as we build upon our success bringing some of the most talented Christian authors and speakers to millions of people around the globe.”
 

Chris Anderson, partner of Kohlberg & Company, said, “Thomas Nelson remains the clear leader in the Christian publishing world and is poised for growth in this new era. Mike and his team have done an excellent job managing the company through the challenges of the recession and we stand behind them as we enter the future.”
 

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

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. 3-7. Vegas Valley Book Festival, Las Vegas, Nevada. http://vegasvalleybookfestival.org.

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.
 

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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Last modified: 03/28/11