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

Vol. 9, No. 5   May 2011

Index (scroll down for stories)  

  1. Women write, edit, publish most books, but men get the attention
  2. Latest book by 83-year-old Mary Higgins Clark published
  3. Breaking news: Charles Frazier’s ‘Nightwoods’ released
  4. Billy Joel kills memoir about drugs, failed Christie Brinkley marriage
  5. Jermaine Jackson working on tell-all memoir on brother Michael's life
  6. Proceeds from Michelle Obama’s book on gardening to go to charity
  7. Author recognition: Relationship guru offers 10 tips for writers
  8. Co-authors of Holocaust book offer tips for collaborations on memoirs
  9. How bad is it? Pbook sales continue slide as ebook sales escalate
10. Update journalism: Amazon second-highest bidder for Hocking novels
11. Author gets book deal in settlement of 'I Love ...' cookbooks lawsuit
12. GABBS Atlanta Spring Book Show attendance up from 2010
13. International front: Advance sales of Pope's new book top one million
14. Digital revolution: ‘Girl with Dragon Tattoo’ sets ebook sales record
15. AAP says U.S. e-book sales up 115.8 percent in January
16. Callaway abandons print, bets the ranch on digital books
17. Author moves one book to Kindle, ups sales to $10,000/mo.
18. Writer of paranormal/erotic fiction hits it big with ebooks
19. 58-yearold thriller writers taps into success with 99-cent ebooks
20. Avon launches digital romance brand Avon Impulse
21. 2010 digital sales at Random House rise 250 percent over 2009
22. Comics news: Radical Publishing moves distribution to Diamond
23. Self-publishing news: Bowker in ms. submissions deal with IBPA
24. Why are so many self-publishers financial failures?
25. Marketing books: Promoting the ebook version of Jean Auel’s latest
26. Milestones: Ian Fleming edges out Agatha Christie in income earned
27. Egan and Mukherjee among Pulitzer winners for books
28. Potter wins Ridenhour for expose of CIGNA health insurance scams
29. Number of copies of ‘Book of Mormon’ in print passes 150 million
30. Tort-feasing in the book business: Punitive damage award reduced
31. CBS 60 Minutes brews controversy for 'Three Cups of Tea' author
32. Judge throws wrench into Google plans to monopolize online books
33. Author of pedophilia book pleads no contest, gets probation
34. $30 million lawsuit filed over Obama book: Should booksellers pay?
35. Trade show news: Spring Book Show transitions to GABBS
36. Network IDPF unveils program for Digital Book 2011 at BookExpo America
37. Book Expo America opens in NYC on May 24
38. Major upcoming trade shows, book fairs and book festivals
 

1. Women write, edit, publish most books, but men get the attention

Books and publishing are increasingly dominated by women as writers, editors and publishers. And it's mostly women who buy and read books. So why do books by women in general get such scant serious attention?

The women's literary organization VIDA recently surveyed some of the most important and influential British and American literary and cultural journals. They looked at the numbers of book reviews written by men and by women, and the number of books written by men and women that were reviewed.

The New York Times Book Review reviewed nearly two books by men to every book by a woman. There are similar figures for Granta, The Paris Review and Poetry.

The New Republic reviewed 55 books by men and nine by women.

At The New Yorker, it was 33 books by men, nine by women. At The New York Review of Books, 306 books by men and 59 by women. At The Times Literary Supplement, 1,036 books by men and 330 by women.

Times Literary Supplement editor Peter Stothard told The Guardian that although women are heavy readers, they are not likely to read the kind of "important books" that the TLS reviews.

2. Latest book by 83-year-old Mary Higgins Clark published

The 30^th novel by 83-year-old Mary Higgins Clark, I’ll Walk Alone, has just been published.

It’s the story of Zan Moreland, an interior designer who has her identity and her child stolen. Then pictures surface that appear to show the heroine kidnapping her own child.

Clark has been a bestselling suspense writer for three decades. Her books have sold 100 million copies in the U.S. and sell another four million per year worldwide.

Her success is so reliable that her publisher, Simon & Schuster, factors her sales into their annual revenue forecasts.

Higgins’ ability to crank out novels at the rate of one a year, and her loyal (primarily female) readership, means that the 83-year-old commands one of the highest salaries in the publishing business, at “more than several million” per book. In 2000, she got an advance of $64 million for five books.

3. Breaking news: Charles Frazier’s ‘Nightwoods’ released

Cold Mountain author Charles Frazier’s first novel since 2006′s Thirteen Moons will be released this October by Random House. Nightwoods tells the story of a young woman living in rural North Carolina in the 1950s raising her murdered sister’s children.

4. Billy Joel kills memoir about drugs, failed Christie Brinkley marriage

Billy Joel has decided to cancel his planned memoir, The Book of Joel.

In a statement to The Associated Press, Joel said he had changed his mind.

The book was scheduled for publication in June by HarperCollins. It was branded as an “emotional ride” that would detail all the Christie Brinkley hullabaloo and substance abuse, plus new revelations about the rock star.

“It took working on writing a book to make me realize that I’m not all that interested in talking about the past, and that the best expression of my life and its ups and downs has been and remains my music,” Joel said.

He reportedly returned a seven-figure advance to the publisher.

Joel has long struggled with alcoholism. In a February Rolling Stone interview, frequent touring partner Elton John chastised Joel for not getting clean.

HarperCollins had already revealed the cover photograph for the book, and Joel’s editor promised it would contain details “he has never revealed before.”

According to the AP, a spokeswoman for HarperCollins said Joel had turned in a finished manuscript, but that no copies had been printed. The publishing house had scheduled a first printing of 250,000 copies.

The memoir was written with veteran music journalist Fred Schruers.

5. Jermaine Jackson working on tell-all memoir on brother Michael's life

Michael Jackson's brother is reportedly working on a memoir to tell the family's side of his story of his brother’s life and death.

Jermaine Jackson has worked out a deal with Touchstone Publishing to publish the memoir that will “set the record straight” on his famous brother’s life.

The book, titled You Are Not Alone: Through A Brother’s Eyes will start with the family’s working-class beginnings in Gary, Ind., and go up to the last moments of Michael’s life.

It will also take a look at the private life of Michael during his time at the Neverland Ranch in California, according to a Reuters report.

The book’s publisher, Touchstone, a subsidiary of Simon & Schuster, released a statement saying, "It is a frank, but sophisticated examination of the human, not the legend, with revealing insights and no subject off limits."

USA Today quoted Jermaine Jackson saying that he wanted to write the book so that the trial of Michael’s doctor would not be the last word on his death.

"This is the truth as we know it. I have read so much about what people think they know about Michael, but this is about what really happened ... Everyone has said it all about Michael and us. They cannot say anything more. Now it is our turn."
 

6. Proceeds from Michelle Obama’s book on gardening to go to charity

First Lady Michelle Obama has signed with Crown Publishing Group to write a book about the garden she started at the White House and her efforts to promote healthy eating habits.

Mrs. Obama is receiving no advance and will be donating the royalty proceeds to charity. The specific charity has yet to be named.

The Christian Science Monitor reports the untitled book will be published in April 2012 and will include photos of the White House garden, as well as other gardens from around the United States. The book is also expected to include an explanation as to what inspired her to plant the first edible garden on the White House's lawn since Eleanor Roosevelt's "victory garden."

Some of the Obama family's favorite healthy recipes will be included.

7. Author recognition: Relationship guru offers 10 tips for writers

Blane Bachelor, journalist, nationally syndicated columnist and author of the recently published On Being a Bachelor: Thoughts on Dating, Mating and Relating (Virgil Press), has 10 tips for wannabe writers and authors.

Bachelor was among 16 distinguished presenters at the Authorship 101-201 workshops held in conjunction with the GABBS Atlanta Spring Book Show at Atlanta's Cobb Galleria Center. The workshops were arranged by the Southern Review of Books newsletter in cooperation with the Atlanta Chapter of the American Society of Journalists and Authors.

Bachelor, a long-term columnist with Atlanta's The Sunday Paper, is a former staffer at two metropolitan newspapers. She has written hundreds of articles and columns about dating, relationships, travel and pop culture for outlets including Marie Claire, Women's Health, People.com, Tango.com, Modern Bride, Zink!, the Christian Science Monitor and USA Today. Her popular advice column, "Ask a Bachelor," appears weekly in metro newspapers across the United States.

She offered fledgling writers advice on how to avoid "10 Pitfalls to Avoid on Your Way to Being Published." The Top 10 tips:

(1) Know the trade terminology used by professional writers, authors, editors and publishers.
(2) Always submit clean copy that avoids bad spelling and grammar and punctuation errors.
(3) Do your homework. Avoid accuracy errors. Check to be sure you have your facts correct - accurate names, addresses, ages and other information.
(4) Become a reader. You're not going to become a successful author if you don’t read.
(5) Avoid being short on patience and drive. Writing is a high-energy profession.
(6) Avoid tormented, tortured, insane query letters. Be calm and professional.
(7) Avoid listening to advice from unqualified critics. Your Mom loves you, but she's probably not capable of judging the excellence of your writing.
(8) Have some Web presence. You should be on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the like.
(9) Don't assume that your book or writing will sell itself. You have to play the prime role in marketing.
(10) Avoid unrealistic expectations. Believe in yourself, but recognize that not everything you write is worthy of publication.

8. Co-authors of Holocaust book offer tips for collaborations on memoirs

Award winning freelance writer Mickey Goodman and her co-author, Holocaust survivor Eva Friedlander, spoke to fledgling authors on writing memoirs and collaborations in conjunction with the GABBS Atlanta Spring Book Show.

Goodman and Friedlander were among 16 distinguished presenters at the Authorship 101-201 workshops held in conjunction with the GABBS Atlanta Spring Book Show at the Cobb Galleria in Atlanta, Ga. in March.

Goodman has written more than 500 by-lined articles for Thomson-Reuters, People, Veranda, Southern Living, Women’s Wear Daily, Holmes - Make it Right, Atlanta Magazine and numerous others. She also contributed to the anthology, Loss is Inevitable, Grief is Natural, Healing is Gradual and blogs for Huffington Post.

The co-authors offered the following tips for both writers and subjects writing memoirs:

1. Consider collaborations business dealings, not labors of love

9. How bad is it? Pbook sales continue slide as ebook sales escalate

Net ebook sales in January garnered $69.9 million in revenue for their publishers, up 116 percent from last year's total for January. During the same period, adult hardcover sales were down 11.3 percent to $49.1 million and paperback sales fell to $83.6 million, a drop of 19.7 percent year-on-year … Hastings Entertainment reported a sharp decrease in fourth-quarter earnings, with a net income of $3.8 million, or $0.43 per share compared to $9.1  million or $0.94 per share, in the corresponding period one year earlier.  Sales of $166.9 million for the quarter were down 8.9 percent from $176.1 million a year earlier. Full-year sales of $521 million were down 1.9 percent from $531 million a year ago … Barnes & Noble is having trouble finding a buyer. The bookseller's efforts to find a buyer have slowed to a crawl, erasing recent gains in its stock price, as potential suitors question the bookseller's ability to compete against rivals. B&N put itself up for sale last summer. About a dozen potential suitors showed interest, but all have since dropped out of bidding. Standard & Poors analyst Mike Souers notes that chairman Len Riggio, who owns about 30 percent of the company, has said that he might be interested in taking the company private. "It's likely that investors are just coming to terms with the fact that Leonard Riggio is unlikely to cede power," Souers said. "Unless it's a private takeover led by him, it's unlikely to happen."

10. Update journalism: Amazon second-highest bidder for Hocking novels

Amazon.com was the second-highest bidder for the rights to four novels by ebook phenom Amanda Hocking. Amazon lost out to St. Martin's Press, which paid about $2 million. It was the most aggressive move yet by Amazon into territory traditionally occupied by the major New York houses. Until now, Amazon has made publishing deals, usually for backlist titles or specialty projects. To beef up its offer, Amazon brought in Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which would have published print editions of the books, and presumably sold them.

11. Author gets book deal in settlement of 'I Love ...' cookbooks lawsuit

A New York woman will be bringing home the bacon after picking up a book contract to settle her lawsuit against a former agent she claimed stole her cookbook idea.

Lisa Skye sued Andrews McMeel Publishing and her former agent, Jayne Rockmill, last month saying Rockmill had been negotiating on her behalf to produce a series of "I Love . . ." celebrity cookbooks featuring different ingredients, but instead stole the idea after Skye fired her.

Rockmill and Andrews McMeel published "I Love Bacon" without Skye and printed nearly 40,000 copies of the book. To settle the lawsuit, Andrews McMeel will publish Skye.

12. GABBS Atlanta Spring Book Show attendance up from 2010

Some 70 vendors offered more than 85,000 bargain titles - including remainders, returns, promotionals, “white sales” and used books - at the GABBS Atlanta Spring Book Show, held March 25-27 at the Cobb Galleria Centre.

The show, which is staged by L.B. May & Associates of Knoxville, Tenn., was the 16th in the series.

Prior to the show opening, Larry May, who owns L.B. May with his wife, Valerie, announced the creation of the GABBS (Great American Bargain Book Show) network, which will encompass the annual Atlanta event, the GABBS Boston show (held in August) and new services such as an e-newsletter, a print buyers guide and a Web site (www.gabbs.net), that will soon offer training modules and short videos.

May told Publishers Weekly that plans for the GABBS network had been brewing for the past six months, and will put all of the Knoxville, Tenn., company’s bargain book expertise and events under a single umbrella, with a unified Web presence.

In news from the show floor at SBS, attendance rose two percent over 2010, and there was a marked increase in international participants, both as buyers and vendors (like Caxton from the U.K. and Book Depot from Canada). Those trends are in line with the convention’s growth over the past 15 years as well as U.S. economic factors.

“Because the (domestic book) market has declined somewhat,” May told PW, “exhibitors have reached out to the internationals” who can take advantage of the relatively weak dollar. Asian countries in particular, including Korea, Japan, India, and China, have shown a greater interest in the bargain book market: “There’s demand in their countries for English-language books, but to buy them new and import them can be extremely expensive. So remainders are a good option,” he said.

May noted that there is evidence of a diminishing pool of high-caliber remainders.

“I heard from the exhibitors, though not from the buyers, that they’re struggling more than normal in trying to find quality products. A lot of the publishers are printing smaller press runs, so that affects what’s left over for remainders and returns.” (See also Marc Schultz, Publishers Weekly, March 30, 2011)

13. International front: Advance sales of Pope's new book top one million

The Vatican on March 10 announced the official publication of a new book by Pope Benedict XVI, the second volume of the Pope’s planned three-part work on Jesus of Nazareth.

Holy Week: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection is being released in seven different languages.

Advance sales of the book exceeded one million copies. The book is available in electronic form as well as hardcover format.

In the new book, Benedict relies on both his background as a renowned theologian and his deep personal faith to offer a portrait of the Crucifixion and Resurrection. He draws on other important events in Jesus’ public ministry to illustrate Christ’s mission. Even as he shows his familiarity with the work of Scripture scholars and theologians, Benedict demonstrates that a full understanding of Jesus can be obtained only through the eyes of faith.

The director of the Vatican publishing house, Father Giuseppe Costa, told L’Osservatore Romano that he received the final manuscript of the Pope’s work almost 18 months ago, with portions written in pencil in “the Pope’s unmistakable tiny handwriting.”

Since that time the Vatican publisher has been working on official translations, production, and contracts with the publishers who are handling the different editions of the work.

The new volume follows Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, which was published in 2008. In the preface to the second volume, the Pope discloses that the third volume of the work will focus on the accounts of Jesus’ birth and infancy.

The English-language publisher of the Pope’s book, Ignatius Press, has prepared a number of resources to accompany publication, including a study guide and a trailer, on the Ignatius web site, introducing the new volume.

14. Digital revolution: ‘Girl with Dragon Tattoo’ sets ebook sales record

In what is believed to be a first for U.S. ebook sales, the digital edition of Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has sold one million copies. The New York Times reported that the combined digital sales for Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy are currently more than three million copies and "selling at a clip of more than 500,000 copies a month in all formats." … The estate of James Jones has made an agreement with Open Road Integrated Media to issue 10 titles by the author in ebook form, including an edition of the classic From Here to Eternity that restores "explicit mentions of gay sex and a number of four-letter words" that were deleted by his publisher, Scribner, when the book was originally published in 1951, according to the New York Times. James had fought the censorship, arguing to his editor that "the things we change in this book for proprietary's sake will in five years, or ten years, come in someone else's book anyway."… Authors of ebooks, especially those who market via the Kindle platform, are reporting significant sales increases since the December holidays, although none of them know exactly why. “Something happened after the new year,” one author said. “I don’t know if it’s because more people purchased ereaders or what. But in January sales almost doubled what they were in December, and it was just a huge upswing.”

15. AAP says U.S. e-book sales up 115.8 percent in January

The latest data from the Association of American Publishers shows that net sales of ebooks approached $70 million in January 2011, a 115.8 percent increase above the $32 million in sales logged the previous January.

Across the board, sales of ebooks and downloadable audio books have been strong, despite the lingering difficulties faced by many retail book giants and the publishing industry as a whole.

Other key highlights of the report include:

Total books sales on all platforms, in all categories, hit $805.7 million for January 2011. This was a slight drop from January 2010′s $821.5 million sales.

Adult Hardcover category fell from $55.4 million to $49.1 million (-11.3 percent), Adult Paperback dropped from $104.2 million to $83.6 million (-19.7 percent) and Adult Mass Market declined from $56.4 million to $39.0 (-30.9 percent)

In the Children’s/Young Adult category, Hardcover sales were $31.2 million in January 2011 vs. $31.8 million in January 2010 (-1.9 percent) while Paperbacks were $25.4 million, down 17.7 percent from $30.9 million in January 2010.

16. Callaway abandons print, bets the ranch on digital books

The prince of coffee table books believes paper books are dead. Now he wants to be king of the app.

Nicholas Callaway is an app producer, publisher, television producer, writer, and photographer. He is the chairman and chief creative officer of Callaway Digital Arts, which publishes premium lifestyle and children’s applications for Apple’s iPad, iPhone, and iPod family of products.

In 1980, Nicholas Callaway founded Callaway Arts & Entertainment, a publishing firm specializing in the design, production and publication of illustrated books. Titles include: Alfred Stieglitz: Photographs & Writings, Georgia O'Keeffe’s One Hundred Flowers, Irving Penn’s Passage, Madonna’s Sex, Diana: Portrait of A Princess, The Art of Make-Up by Kevyn Aucoin, A Nation Challenged: A Visual History of 9/11 and its Aftermath, a series of children's books by Madonna, the Callaway Classics series of fairy tales, and Obama: The Historic Journey, co-published with The New York Times.

In 1994, the company launched Miss Spider's Tea Party by David Kirk, which has sold five million copies worldwide. Subsequently, Nicholas Callaway and David Kirk founded Callaway & Kirk Co. LLC, which is dedicated exclusively to the creations of David Kirk, including the Miss Spider and Nova the Robot book series, the Sunny Patch line of children's lifestyle products at Target stores, and “Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends,” a 3-D computer-animated television series that airs daily on Nick Jr. in the U.S. and also in several other countries around the world, including Germany, Indonesia and Mexico.

In August 2010, with an investment from Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield, and Byers, Nicholas Callaway founded Callaway Digital Arts (CDA) with the idea to transform the media landscape with interactive apps for the iPad generation. As the lines between traditional media converge, CDA is redefining the story, play and “how to" content experience with products that constitute a new medium. CDA’s apps include Martha Stewart Makes Cookies, Miss Spider’s Tea Party (for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch), Miss Spider’s Bedtime Story (for the iPad), Sesame Street’s The Monster at the End of This Book, Thomas & Friends: Misty Island Rescue, and (RED): The Lazarus Effect.

Callaway Digital Arts was a recipient of a U.S. Department of Education's 2010 Ready-to-Learn Grant. Using the funds from this grant, CDA is developing transmedia properties to enhance early learning for all young children with special emphasis on those who are socio-economically disadvantaged and/or English Language Learners.

For Callaway, it's now all about apps - small applications sold in Apple's App Store where books are enhanced beyond the mere text of ebooks. In this cutting-edge new medium, cooks can clap hands to turn pages of an interactive recipe, a book about Richard Nixon can include footage of him sweating during presidential debates, a Sesame Street character can read a story out loud and, should your child get bored, the app can turn the tale into a jigsaw puzzle or a computerized finger-painting set.

"I have bet the whole ranch on this," Callaway told Reuters. "This kind of juncture happens maybe once in a century."

17. Mystery novelist moves one book to Kindle, ups sales to $10,000/mo.

Blake Crouch is among a growing list of authors who are bypassing the traditional publisher route to sell their work directly to consumers.

The rise of the ebook market has allowed authors to eliminate the high infrastructure costs of a print product. A typical print run of a few thousand books can cost a self-publisher a hefty five figures, whereas the actual publishing of an ebook (not including the production costs) amounts to virtually nothing.

The ebook allows authors to skip over other hurdles, including the reality that most brick-and-mortar retailers won’t stock a self-published book on their shelves.

Crouch is a mystery and suspense novelist. His last few titles were published by St. Martin’s Press, and he has a literary agent dedicated to selling the rights to his work. But early last year, intrigued by success stories with Amazon’s Kindle store, he decided to release a collection of his short stories as an ebook without the aid of a publisher.

Though sales started off slow - a few hundred a month - within the last two months he’s been averaging 5,000 purchases a month. With his 70 percent cut from Amazon, that means a $2.99 ebook is generating upwards of $10,000 a month, money that bypasses the traditional publisher completely and goes straight to his pocket. Five thousand sales a month, he says, “is far more than he’s sold traditionally.”

“With ebooks you’re there from the ground level, and it is very taxing,” Crouch says. “You have to have it formatted. I work with a wonderful cover artist who does all the cover art for my ebooks, and he’s worked on developing a brand with me over the last year. It was a no brainer for him to do this. And then there’s a lot of metadata in terms of loading all these to the various platforms; it’s not just Kindle, it’s Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Sony and the Apple iBooks store. There are the library lending programs, which I’m just starting to explore.”

Crouch prices the ebook versions of most of his longer work, like novels or short story collections, at $2.99 or higher. He plans to price his individual short stories at 99 cents. (Source: Simon Owens, TheNextWeb.com, March 7, 2011)

18. Writer of paranormal/erotic fiction hits it big with ebooks

Tina Folsom, a paranormal and erotic romance author, tried for years to land a literary agent and traditional publisher to no avail.

On a whim she decided early in 2010 to upload some of her novels to various ebook platforms.

Sales at first were slow - only a few hundred a month. Then, in October 2010, she sold over a thousand titles. In December, her sales jumped to 11,000, and in January she sold 27,000 ebooks. In February, a 28-day month, she sold around 22,000).

Why did sales increase so drastically?

“I’m not 100 percent sure,” Folsom told Simon Owens of TheNextWeb.com. “There were certainly different levels (of sales) at the beginning. I started making better covers for my books, so that made a big difference. My blurbs describing my books had a really good hook, and that certainly helped. I went around a lot of blogs as well, approaching paranormal romance blogs or vampire blogs to try to get my books reviewed, because obviously there are very few sites that will actually review self-published books.

Folsom pays a person to illustrate her covers, and not only has she hired a copy editor to line edit her upcoming books, but the editor is also going back and editing her already-published titles for errors. Up until recently she had split her time between writing, editing and her day job, but she quit the day job and the production assistance she farms out allows her to spend most of her time writing.

Folsom charges between $4.99 and $5.99 per ebook. After Amazon takes its 30 percent cut, Folsom’s 70 percent comes to upwards of $4.20 for every copy sold - a lot better than the 10 to 25 percent of cover price she would be getting for an ebook from a traditional publisher.

There is a downside to avoiding the traditional publishers. For example, Folsom has not been able to sell the foreign rights to her work, meaning right now she can only market her books to an English-speaking audience. “We cannot get anyone to buy our foreign rights. I’ve emailed agents, tons of them. The response I get is, ‘Well, if you’re not also interested in selling your U.S. erights, then I can’t represent you,’” she told Simon Owens of TheNextWeb.com. “I’ve even contacted foreign rights agents directly who don’t deal with domestic issues and even those are rejecting us. They say if they can’t go to a publisher abroad and say that you’ve been published with Random House, or Penguin, or wherever, then they’re not going to be interested.” (Source: Simon Owens, TheNextWeb.com, March 7, 2011)

19. 58-yearold thriller writers taps into success with 99-cent ebooks

Louisville businessman John Locke, a part-time thriller writer whose signature series features a former CIA assassin, recently had seven titles on Amazon.com’s 50 top-selling Kindle list. All seven are priced at 99 cents.

"When I saw that highly successful authors were charging $9.99 for an e-book, I thought that if I can make a profit at 99 cents, I no longer have to prove I'm as good as them," says Locke. "Rather, they have to prove they are ten times better than me."

Locke earns 35 cents for every title he sells at 99 cents. Altogether, he says his publishing revenue amounted to $126,000 from Amazon in March alone. It costs him about $1,000 to have his book published digitally, complete with an original dust jacket image. He also hires an editor to work with him at additional expense.

In March, he sold 369,000 downloads on Amazon, up from about 75,000 in January and just 1,300 in November. His titles are also sold by digital bookstores operated by Kobo Inc., Barnes & Noble Inc. and Apple.

Locke has more than 20,000 Twitter followers, uses a blog to promote his books, and personally answers hundreds of emails each week. "It's all about marketing, but they have to like your stuff," he says.

Amazon pays all authors who use Kindle Direct Publishing, the retailer's independent publishing service, a royalty rate of 35 percent on digital titles priced below $2.99, and 70 percent on e-books priced between $2.99 and $9.99.

Locke could raise his prices to $2.99, a level that would earn him $2 for each title sold. However, he says he's not interested in such a jump. "This is the price that brought me to the dance," he says.

Locke says he isn't interested in doing business with New York publishing houses. "It wouldn't be fun for me," he says. "I don't want to be told when to publish, I don't want to soften my character, and I don't want to be told what stories to write."

He has, however, hired Jane Dystel, a literary agent, to field movie offers and deal with foreign publishers interested in releasing his books overseas. Dystel says her agency is negotiating several such deals. (Source: Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, the Wall Street Journal)

20. Avon launches digital romance brand Avon Impulse

Avon Books is introducing Avon Impulse, a new imprint dedicated to digital publishing that will feature e-books and POD novels and novellas by current Avon authors.

The company said that Avon Impulse authors will benefit from "the same platforms" that Avon authors have as well as from "a dedicated 'five-point' marketing and publicity platform" that includes "cross promotion, digital marketing and publicity, social media outreach, interactive assets and coaching, as well as targeted online retail placement strategies."

Avon Impulse ebooks will be sold via all online retailers. POD copies will be available from online book retailers. According to the imprint's website, Avon is taking this step in part because "traditional channels for mass market genre fiction are shrinking. Fewer grocery stores, drug stores, mall stores and superstores are carrying a broad selection of romance titles. While there is a strong consumer market for Avon titles, the channels that we have always depended on to grow new voices and publish broadly are under pressure."

Avon Impulse's first title is A Lady's Wish, an original novella by Katharine Ashe that made its debut on March 15. The imprint aims to release at least a title a week.

Avon Impulse will pay no advance to authors but will offer 25 percent royalties, beginning with the first title. After 10,000 copies of an e-book are sold, the royalty rate rises to 50 percent.

Plans call for at least one new title every week going forward. Unlike Harlequin's digital imprint Carina Press, Avon Impulse will use DRM (digital erights management), as do all of the traditional Harper imprints.

Canadian romance giant Harlequin started a digital-only imprint in 2009, and other publishers have taken stabs at digital-only, but the Avon Impulse launch marks the first time a major New York house has ventured into the ebook-only sphere in some years.

The move reflects both the popularity of ebooks among genre novel readers and the increasing competition traditional publishers face from the likes of Amazon and BarnesandNoble.com, which offer self-publishing services - and a highly favorable royalty rate - to budding romance writers.

In addition, publishers need to find new sales outlets as the bankrupt Borders Group closes stores and mass retailers like Wal-Mart pull back on the number of mass market titles they carry. With fewer places for new authors to be discovered, romance houses are having a harder time developing talent.

“To build a new author we need a place to do that,” said Avon Books Publisher Liate Stehlik. “The digital landscape is the best place right now.”

Avon Impulse will also give HarperCollins an economical way to publish. With the ebook line, there will be no shipping and printing costs.

“It's a smart business model for both the publisher and the author,” said Lorraine Shanley, a principal of publishing industry consulting firm Market Partners International. “And it brings the reader vetted, quality books at a reasonable price.”

Stehlik emphasized that authors will get the editorial, publicity and marketing support of an established house.

“We're not just putting the book up there and pricing it at 99 cents and calling it a day,” said Stehlik. “There's a lot we'll put into it, in the same way we would our traditionally published authors.”

21. 2010 digital sales at Random House rise 250 percent over 2009

Worldwide digital sales at Random House rose 250 percent in fiscal year 2010 compared to the year earlier and "some U.S. fiction titles now have as much as half of their first-week's sales in the e-book format," owner Bertelsmann noted in comments on its 2010 results.

CEO Markus Dohle emphasized that digital publishing continues to be a major element at Random House in the U.S., where e-books and digital audiobooks accounted for 10 percent of revenues last year and where digital accounted for 30 percent of revenues in some categories.

Random House now has more than 25,000 titles available digitally, and the company is "further experimenting with a broad range of evolving technology and product formats, such as enhanced ebooks and pure-content apps, as well as new business models including bundling e- and print books, subscription models, and digital services."

Dohle predicted the ebook won't replace printed books, "not even in the long term," but cited estimates that digital titles might account for 50 percent of total revenue by 2015.

As for cannibalization, he commented: "Not every e-book sold simultaneously replaces a printed book … the sum of electronic and print books leads to a market expansion."

E-book consumers are making more impulse purchases because of the ease and speed of buying and downloading ebooks, he continued. He added that "formats and technologies don't matter without having the best writers and the best books."

Bertelsmann said that last year Random House had 230 titles on New York Times bestseller lists and the Millennium trilogy by Stieg Larsson sold more than 13 million copies in the U.S. in a variety of formats.

22. Comics news: Radical Publishing moves distribution to Diamond

Effective in April, Radical Publishing's graphic novel titles and products are being distributed to bookstores, mass market merchandisers, libraries and other outlets worldwide by Diamond Book Distributors. The deal begins with previous backlist titles and new frontlist for the book market with June releases. Founded in 2008 and focusing on character-driven mythological or genre-based stories, many of which are developed with an eye on the film industry, Radical Publishing has recently been distributed by Random House and was earlier distributed by Diamond. Among its titles are “Hercules,” “Aladdin: Legacy of the Lost,” “Earp: Saints for Sinners,” “Legends: the Enchanted” and “Caliber.”

23. Self-publishing news: Bowker in ms. submissions deal with IBPA

Under a new partnership, Bowker is providing its new manuscript submissions service to the 3,000 members of the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA), giving them access to an online book proposal site and a way to review unsolicited manuscripts online. On the service, a prospective author uploads a book proposal and sample materials as well as information about the proposal's subject category, topic, the writer's background and publishing history, a book synopsis and writing sample. IBPA president Florrie Kichler said, "Publishers are continuously overwhelmed and interrupted with unsolicited manuscripts that don't match their interests. BowkerManuscriptSubmission.com applies a proven method for addressing this issue, allowing publishers to review book proposals in an efficient, time-saving manner."

24. Why are so many self-publishers financial failures?

Amanda Hocking, the 26-year-old Minnesota phenomenon expected to clear $2 million or so this year through her self-publishing ebook venture has turned to conventional publishing - for another $2 million.

On her blog, Hocking defends traditional publishing, saying she hasn’t the time to do all the things traditional publishers do for authors.

Is her take on the market unique?

Hardly. It’s pretty much accepted by anyone who knows anything about the book business that authors seldom make good publishers. They’re creative people who don’t have the time to learn how to do all the things that publishers do, much less master the skills and actually do them. That helps to explain why the vast majority of self-published books are financial failures that are lucky to sell 100 to 250 copies of a self-published title to friends, neighbors and relatives.

Take the case of Cory Doctorow, whose efforts to become a self-publisher have been widely publicized through regular updates in Publishers Weekly.

The book that Doctorow has labored to bring into the world for the last year, titled With a Little Help, has been completed - but hardly successfully.

Doctorow admits he has paid a high price to achieve his goal. He wasted time, taking over a year of it to bring one book forth while (by his own admission) neglecting others projects. He made numerous mistakes in the process. And even though he expects to make money on his book, when you amortize the time he’s spent you on, it becomes obvious that he could have made far more had he turned the job over to a professional organization. He admits that the ordeal has taken a toll on his body and psyche.

In a recent PW posting, Doctorow says: “With a Little Help has helped me realize something: whatever I do next, I don’t want to be in charge of all these moving parts. I can’t be both a Zen, let-it-all-happen-at-its-own-pace writer and an aggressive, deadline-pushing publisher. If I were realistically going to keep up this publishing stuff, I would need to outsource every task that requires the virtues inherent in agents, editors, sales, marketing, distribution and retail, especially that willingness to tithe a large portion of my working day to logistics, follow-ups, and calls.”

25. Marketing books: Promoting the ebook version of Jean Auel’s latest

Jean Auel has been publishing a bestselling series set in prehistory for years. Her saga concludes with the March publication of the sixth and presumably last book in the series.

The Land of Painted Caves, released around the world, is the final chapter in the Earth's Children cycle and follows Ayla as she seeks to balance her role as mother with that of spiritual leader.

The first book in the cycle, The Clan of the Cave Bear, in which five-year-old Ayla, a Cro-Magnon girl, is left homeless by an earthquake and adopted by a group of Neanderthals called the "Clan," appeared in 1980.
 
Then came The Valley of Horses (1982), The Mammoth Hunters (1985), The Plains of Passage (1990) and The Shelters of Stone (2002).

With a combined print run of 45 million copies, the series has made Auel one of the book world's highest-paid authors.

To prepare for the March 29 release of The Land of Painted Caves, Auel’s publisher revamped the traditional campaign for a pbook to include marketing of the ebook.

The print run for the United States was slimmed down to 465,000 copies from the normal past runs of one million copies. The publisher used social media by making contacts via Scribd, Facebook, Goodreads and Web sites like ECFans.com, Ms. Auel’s most popular fan site.

“The truth is, when you have a brand like Jean Auel, the real challenge is to make sure it reaches the fans who love her so much, and they are legion,” said Molly Stern, the publisher of Crown and Broadway Books, part of Random House.

There has been a sea change in publishing since Auel’s last book, The Shelters of Stone, released in 2002. Many anticipated novels are now selling as many ebooks as print books in the first week of publication. Random House has reissued Auel’s previous five novels in the “Earth’s Children” series in paperback and e-book.

While many modern authors prepare for the release of their books by madly building a following on Facebook and Twitter, Ms. Auel, who is 75, barely bothers with the Internet. She has a Kindle, but has never downloaded an ebook.

“I don’t care if they read it in ebook or in hardcover,” Ms. Auel said from her home in Portland, Ore. “If they enjoy it, I don’t have any objection.” (Sources: Mike Collett-White, Reuters; Julie Bosman, New York Times)

26. Milestones: Ian Fleming edges out Agatha Christie in income earned

Ian Fleming has edged out Agatha Christie as the highest-earning British crime writer of all time. Britain’s The Guardian reported that the "crime writers rich list, prepared for the crime drama digital TV channel Alibi, is based on recorded sales, box office returns, license fees and company accounts." Fleming topped the field at more than £100 million (US$163.8 million), with Christie a close second at £100 million. The Guardian noted that both were soundly thrashed by American crime writers John Grisham (£366 million) and Dan Brown (£244.1 million). You can find the top 10 money lists for both the U.K. and U.S. here. Meanwhile, here’s a list of the top 10 for the U.S. and the UK:

Top 10 U.S. crime writers

John Grisham $600 million

Dan Brown $400 million

Patricia Cornwell $300 million-plus

Robert Ludlum $300 million

Michael Crichton $300 million

Michael Connelly $250 million

Thomas Harris $150 million

Elmore Leonard $100 million

Ed McBain $75 million

James Ellroy $50 million

The top 10 UK crime authors

Ian Fleming £100 million plus

Agatha Christie £100 million

Jeffrey Archer £70 million

Jack Higgins £50 million plus

Ken Follett £50 million

Dick Francis, just under £50 million

Ruth Rendell £30 million plus

Lee Child £30 million

Ian Rankin £25 million

Alexander McCall Smith £20 million

27. Egan and Mukherjee among Pulitzer winners for books

The 2011 Pulitzer Prize winners in Letters are listed below. Leading the list is the award to Jennifer Egan for fiction.
Fiction

A Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan (Alfred A. Knopf)

Knopf said it is reprinting 100,000 copies of the Egan trade paperback with the Pulitzer seal. Released in late March, that edition will be up to 185,000 copies in print when the new printings are completed. Spokesman Paul Bogaards said Goon Squad sold about 25,000 digital copies since its original release.

Nonfiction

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, by Siddhartha Mukherjee (Scribner)

History

The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, by Eric Foner (Norton)

Biography

Washington: A Life, by Ron Chernow (The Penguin Press)

Poetry

The Best of It: New and Selected Poems, by Kay Ryan (Grove Press)

Drama

Clybourne Park, by Bruce Norris

28. Potter wins Ridenhour for exposé of CIGNA health insurance scams

Wendell Potter has won the Ridenhour Book Prize, sponsored by the Nation Institute and the Fertel Foundation and honoring "an outstanding work of social significance," for Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR Is Killing Healthcare and Deceiving Americans (Bloomsbury Press).

Potter was once head of corporate communications at CIGNA, the insurance company. The judges called Deadly Spin an "exposé of America's multibillion-dollar healthcare industry. From clandestine meetings carefully organized to leave no paper trail to creating third-party front groups, Potter reveals how a PR juggernaut creates an atmosphere of fear and distortion. He details the smear campaign that he helped to devise against Michael Moore's film “Sicko,” including misleading talking points that were subsequently repeated on CNN, Fox and in the pages of USA Today. Potter later apologized to Moore."

The judges commended Potter for "courage in walking away from a long-standing, lucrative career, for speaking out against his former employers, and for writing a damning exposé of an industry that puts profits ahead of patient care."

29. Number of copies of ‘Book of Mormon’ in print passes 150 million

The Book of Mormon, which appears on almost all lists of the 10 best-selling books of all time, has passed another milestone in its 181st year of existence - the 150 millionth copy was printed in April.

Officially titled The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Christ, it is accepted by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its more than 14 million members worldwide as scripture - one of the church's four sacred texts or sacred works, along with the Holy Bible, the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price.

From its first printing in March 1830 overseen by LDS Church founder and prophet Joseph Smith and performed by Egbert B. Grandin in his printing and sales shop, the Book of Mormon is now available fully translated in 82 languages and partially translated in another 25 languages.

It also is available in American Sign Language DVDs as well as in audio and online formats.

The Book of Mormon is distributed free by the church's more than 52,000 missionaries worldwide as well as online at the church's web site. (Source: Scott Taylor, Deseret News, April 19, 2011)

30. Tort-feasing in the book business: Punitive damage award reduced

A federal judge in Philadelphia has reduced a $5 million punitive damage award to two law school professors who said they were defamed by a legal publishing firm that released a book addendum bearing their names even though they didn't work on it. U.S. District Judge John P. Fullam said there was little dispute about the facts. But he said the $2.5 million awards to University of Pennsylvania professor David Rudovsky and Widener Law School professor Leonard Sosnov exceeded the actual damage to their reputations. The Philadelphia Inquirer said Fullam cut the award for each man to $110,000, which combined with $90,000 in compensatory damages means that each would get $200,000. A spokesman for West Publishing Corp. hailed the ruling but said it did not go far enough.

31. CBS 60 Minutes brews controversy for 'Three Cups of Tea' author

The veracity of parts of Greg Mortenson’s best-selling memoir Three Cups of Tea has been in question since a series of allegations leveled by author Jon Krakauer were followed by a hard-hitting exposé story on “CBS 60 Minutes” on April 17.

Until the charges were leveled, Mortenson was seen as a modern-day saint of the publishing world.

Krakauer, whose accusations were the centerpiece of the “60 Minutes” investigation, has written a 75-page book on the same subject, Three Cups of Deceit: How Greg Mortenson, Humanitarian Hero, Lost His Way.

Krakauer, perhaps best known as the author of Into Thin Air, among other titles, expanded on his charges against Mortenson, the founder of the Central Asia Institute(CAI).

In the 77-page book, released as an Amazon Kindle Single, Krakauer asserts that Mortenson "fabricated substantial parts of his bestselling books Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools. Krakauer says that Mortenson "has also misused millions of dollars donated by unsuspecting admirers," including Krakauer himself.

One eye-opening section about his books (Krakauer is donating the proceeds to the American Himalayan Foundation's Stop Girl Trafficking Project) reads:

"Using CAI funds, Mortenson has purchased many tens of thousands of copies of Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools, which he has subsequently handed out to attendees at his speaking engagements. A significant number of these books were charged to CAI's Pennies for Peace program, contrary to Mortenson's frequent assertions that CAI uses 'every penny' of every donation made to Pennies for Peace to support schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Rather than buy Mortenson's books at wholesale cost from his publisher, moreover, CAI has paid retail price from commercial outlets such as Borders, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon. Buying from retailers allows Mortenson to receive his author's royalty for each book given away, and also allows these handouts to augment his ranking on national bestseller lists. (Had he ordered the books from his publisher, Mortenson would not have received a royalty, nor would bestseller lists reflect those purchases.)

According to one of Mortenson's friends, when he learned that Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love had bumped Three Cups of Tea from number one down to number two on the New York Times paperback nonfiction list, 'Greg was furious. He started buying books like crazy, with the CAI credit card, to try and put Three Cups back on top.' "

Another example of an apparent certain looseness with Institute funds: "CAI has routinely paid for extravagances such as a four-day excursion by Mortenson to the Telluride Mountain Film Festival in May 2010, where he was a featured speaker. A Learjet was chartered to fly Mortenson, his wife and children, and four other individuals from Montana to Colorado and back. CAI rented multiple residences in Telluride to house the entourage. Lavish meals were billed to the foundation. The jet charter alone cost CAI more than $15,000."

Mortenson laid some of the blame for inaccuracies in Three Cups of Tea on his co-writer, David Oliver Relin. Speaking of trips and events being compressed, he said, "So, rather than me going two or three times to one place, he would synthesize it into one trip. I would squawk about it and be told that it would all work out."

On April 18, Mortenson’s publisher, Viking, announced it would conduct a review of his book, which has sold more than three million copies. (According to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks about 75 percent of book sales in the U.S., the memoir has sold 91,000 hardcover copies and about three million paperback copies.)

Mortenson himself has stood by his accounts, although he has admitted at least one section of Three Cups of Tea was a “compression version of events.”

The publishing industry, says Ira Silverberg, a book agent, is to blame.

“The biggest problem publishers have is that the fiction category isn't as good as it used to be,” Silverberg said in an NPR interview. “In the age of Oprah and celebrity reality television and true tales, everyone wants a spokesperson for some horrible incident or ... tragedy. A lot of writers feel forced into making a memoir of something that might more accurately be called fiction.”

Then why don’t memoirs go through more rigorous reviews, the fact-checking that magazines, for example, conduct on many of their articles?

With hundreds and even thousands of manuscripts being reviewed and edited at any given time, it’s simply too much material to check, they say -  and far too expensive for just about any publishing house.

Publishing houses typically make memoirists sign a clause that states the author asserts the facts he or she has written are true and is not defrauding the publishing house.

The notoriously reserved Mortenson will now be required to examine his own lies, truths, and motives.

“I am awkward, soft-spoken, ineloquent and intensely shy,” Mortenson wrote in Stones Into Schools, his 2009 sequel to Three Cups of Tea. “The duties of speaking, promoting and fund-raising into which I have been thrust during the last several years have often made me feel like a man caught in the act of conducting an illicit affair with the dark side of his own personality.”

The “60 Minutes” show challenged the accuracy of Mortenson's version of his 1993 visit to the Pakistan village of Korphe following a failed mountain-climbing trip. It also disputed Mortenson's account of later being kidnapped by the Taliban for eight days, and raised questions regarding the finances of the Central Asia Institute, a charity based in Bozeman, Mont., that builds schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mortenson co-founded the charity and serves as executive director.

In the wake of the reports, Amazon.com Inc., Barnes & Noble Inc. and Borders Group Inc. each said that they will continue to sell Three Cups of Tea.

32. Judge throws wrench into Google plans to monopolize online books

Google had big plans in 2008 when it announced that it would digitize practically all the books ever published.

That would eventually put precisely 129,864,880 books at last count on the Internet, accessible to all using the Google database. As of March 2011, Google had scanned about 12 million of those.

Along the way, Google’s attempted to make peace with authors and publishers.

Then, in March, New York federal judge Denny Chin rejected a $125 million settlement Google reached in October 2008.

Google promotes that settlement on its Google Books page as “with a broad class of authors and publishers to make the world’s books even more accessible online,” but Judge Chin was having none of it. Chin said the deal would “arguably give Google control over the search market,” and that its terms went too far. Specifically, Chin ruled that the settlement would give Google a “de facto monopoly” on digitized content.

Google says it just wants to let you search the full text of any book scanned and digitally tucked away in its online database. Also, that it wants to “democratize knowledge” by scanning essentially everything textual created in the history of the world. That worried pretty much everyone in the publishing industry when Google made its plans public in 2004, enough to trigger several domestic and international lawsuits.

In 2008, Google settled with the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers, agreeing to pay $125 million upfront and make it possible for authors and publishers to get paid any time their books are viewed online, all in trade for the right to publish millions of books online. The settlement’s been knocking around the legal system since, finally landing in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

Google called the Chin ruling “disappointing,” but Chin left the door open for an amended settlement by rejecting the current one “without prejudice.” What’s to amend? Chin wants the settlement switched to “opt in,” preventing Google from using copyrighted material by default if copyright owners fail to “opt out.”

33. Author of pedophilia book pleads no contest, gets probation

The man extradited to Florida for writing, publishing and selling a controversial book considered a "how-to" for pedophiles pleaded no contest to criminal charges in exchange for two years' probation, authorities said on April 14.

Phillip Greaves was arrested in his home state of Colorado in December and extradited to Polk County, Fla. Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said at the time his detectives were able to establish jurisdiction in the case by conducting an undercover operation in which they bought a copy of the book The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure: A Child-Lover's Code of Conduct through the mail.

Police paid $50 for the book, which they received on Dec. 8. Greaves even autographed it.

Greaves and his book gained national attention in 2010 after Amazon.com defended selling the book on its Web site despite angry comments and threats of boycotts from thousands of people. The book was removed from the Web site in early November.

Officials said the book talks about safe sex and avoiding injury to children, grooming and preparing children for sex and teaching children how to lie to their parents. Judd said last year that Greaves' book outlines a "code of ethics" that shows pedophiles how to look for the most vulnerable children.

Greaves told reporters after his arrest the book could be used as a guide to rehabilitating pedophiles and instead of teaching them how to avoid arrest, teaches them to avoid illegal actions.

Asked if he is a pedophile, Greaves said, "I only have sex with grown-ups." He said he has no children and "I don't keep children around my house."

On April 14, as he was leaving jail, Greaves told CNN affiliate WESH he still supports the sale of the book.

"I don't think I did anything wrong," he said. "It backfired on me."

According to the pre-arranged plea deal announced in court on April 13, Greaves agreed to plead no contest as charged and will serve two years' probation. While the plea does not require Greaves to register as a sex offender, he is required to continue mental health counseling, said Chip Thullbery, spokesman for the prosecutor's office.

"We believe this agreement accomplishes our objectives: to see he does not do it again and give a warning to others who may want to create such materials," Thullbery said. "If he publishes this book again or sells it further, he would be subject to re-arrest." If that occurs, Greaves could be sentenced to the maximum for the charge: five years in prison.

However, while the probationary terms apply to Florida, Thullbery did not know what action, if any, Florida prosecutors could take if Greaves sells the controversial book in another state where it could be considered legal.

"We'll have to address that issue at that time," Thullbery said.

Greaves will be allowed to serve the probationary term in Colorado. (Source: CNN)

34. $30 million lawsuit filed over Obama book: Should booksellers pay?

Online booksellers cannot be sued over alleged defamatory content on their Web sites if it's created by an outside party, a Washington federal court judge has ruled.

The suit stems from a 2009 book self-published by Larry Sinclair, who claimed he and President Barack Obama had used drugs and engaged in sexual acts together in 1999. Court records listed a Post Office Box address in Tennessee for Sinclair, but filings also place him at a Florida residence.

A book publishing service (vanity press) sold copies of Sinclair's book through booksellers Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com and Books-A-Million. The publishing company also sent promotional materials to be posted with the listing for the book.

An individual named in Sinclair’s book, Daniel Parisi, sued in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against Sinclair for more than $30 million in damages, claiming the book was defamatory. He also named the booksellers as defendants, arguing they were also liable for selling the book and publishing the promotional materials on their Web sites.

Parisi, an Internet entrepreneur, owns the domain name whitehouse.com, which, according to his complaint, he intends to develop into a “politically-oriented website.”

When Sinclair first went public with his allegations against then-candidate Barack Obama in January 2008, Parisi offered to administer a polygraph test to see if Sinclair was telling the truth, agreeing to pay Sinclair between $10,000 and $100,000, depending on the results. Parisi, in his complaint, said Sinclair failed the test.

Sinclair, in his book, lodged a series of allegations against Parisi, including that he had received a tip that Parisi was paid $750,000 by Obama campaign advisers to fudge the results of the polygraph test. Parisi has denied this.

Parisi’s suit against Sinclair is pending, but in an opinion released in March, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon granted Books-A-Million’s motion to dismiss and Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com’s motions for summary judgment.

Under the federal Communications Decency Act, Leon wrote, online booksellers are immune from litigation over alleged defamatory content published on their sites created by an outside party. In this case, since the book and promotional statements published on the booksellers’ sites came from Sinclair’s publishing company, Leon found Parisi did not have grounds to sue the booksellers.

In a footnote, Leon noted that while the booksellers’ online sites are immune under the act, their in-store sales and sales through e-book readers such as Amazon’s Kindle do not fall under that same protection. But Leon ruled that because Parisi also couldn’t prove the stores knowingly published any defamatory material, his claims similarly did not hold weight.

35. Trade show news: Spring Book Show transitions to GABBS Network

The Spring Book Show 2011, co-owned by Larry and Valerie May of Knoxville, Tenn., and held at Cobb Galleria Centre, was successful across the board for vendors and bookstore owners and buyers.

“We are very pleased with the attendee turnout this year,” said May. “The 2011 show had a two percent increase over 2010’s buyer attendance.”

Vendor spaces were sold out. “We have seen an increase in vendor attendance for the last five years,” said May. Along with the U.S., there were several other countries represented including England, Morocco, Canada, Nigeria, Pakistan, Costa Rica, Philippines, South Korea, Ghana, Mexico, India, and Australia. There were also people from Jamaica, Barbados and the Bahamas.

By and large, vendors reported increases in sales over 2010.

According to Eric Keyes, sales representative of Book Enterprises, LLC, of New Bedford, Mass., “Our sales are up this year. We specialize in children’s remainders. This year we had more inventory and a greater variety to offer. Our company is new, so we want a show that is successful. The GABBS Atlanta: Spring Book Show has been successful for us, and we are happy with it.”

Eric McKnight, CEO of Addico Solutions, Inc., of Grayson, Ga., said, "We found the Spring Book Show was crucial to the success of our business. We signed our first five customers here nine years ago. Business continues to go up each year, in part because of our ability to meet new customers who are attracted to this high-quality remainder book show."

Said Daedalus Books sales rep Paul Nuhn of Columbia, Md.: “The Spring Book Show is great. Larry May is constantly reaching out to new buyers and finding new markets to attract to the shows.”

That ability to attract new buyers and markets is important, especially in today's economic situation.

“The remainder business is a face-to-face business,” said Armadillo Trading Co. owner Bill Sjolander of Norristown, Pa. “We need trade shows like this one.”

That point was made on the morning registration opened for the Great American Bargain Book Show 2011 Boston Show.  “We sold 75 percent of available spots on the first morning,” said May. “We feel that is a good sign these shows work. Most trade shows are for introducing your company to new eyes and giving them samples of what you produce. Our shows are different because here attendees are placing orders for product and vendors are selling.”

Vendors reported that their sales were split between domestic and international sales, with 80 percent domestic.

The show’s main emphasis is on books, but this year David Hoff, president of Professional Book Fairs of Canada, had another story to add.

“We found a much greater interest this year in non-book items,” he said. “We brought a greater offering to the show, including As Seen on TV items, and our sales went up over 2010 even though we saw the same amount of buyers.”

Vann James, sales manager of XS Overstocks, Inc., said he saw twice as many buyers this year over 2010.

Most vendors are confident the remainder book business will be good for the next few years because of the availability and variety of product. Even though ebooks will eventually have a larger market share, Larry Austin, owner of East Tennessee Trade Group, said he believes those sales will plateau.

“We believe the industry is strong,” said Keyes, of Book Enterprises, LLC.

36. IDPF unveils program for Digital Book 2011 at BookExpo America

The International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) has announced the program outline for Digital Book 2011 at BEA.

The conference, held in partnership with BookExpo America (BEA), will be held May 23-24 in New York City's Javits Center, and is expected to draw global leaders in the publishing industry, technologists, marketers, retailers, supply chain management, publishers, agents, and authors.

Following on the sold-out success of last year's conference, the 2011 event is expected to sell out once again, and Ingram and OverDrive have renewed their commitment as platinum event sponsors.

Attendees will hear from and about Adobe, Apple, Barnes and Noble, Google and others, as well as major publishers and service providers.

"This event is going to provide attendees from across the globe with a deeper understanding and insight into the accelerating digital transformation of the book publishing industry. Our featured speakers and multiple hands-on workshops are designed to equip attendees with the tools required to achieve success during this critical time of change," remarked Bill McCoy, executive director, IDPF.

The program will lead off with an in-depth assessment of the key factors underlying the success of the eBook in 2010, followed by a roundtable of publishing industry executives discussing recent events, news and challenges.

The conference includes featured speakers, in-depth sessions and hands-on workshops broken down into business and marketing tracks and technology and production tracks, maximizing the learning opportunity for every attendee. 

Session topics include: International Market Opportunities, Creating Highly-Accessible Interactive Content, Update on eReading Devices and Apps, A First Look at EPUB® 3, Transforming the Business of Publishing, Breakthrough Business Models, Lending of Digital Books, Metadata Boot Camp, The Future of Digital Reading and Publishing, Wrangling the Backlist, Distribution Updates (with a focus on maximizing discovery), eBook Production Jumpstart, Social/Direct Marketing (including case studies from publishers and authors) and the Future of EPUB. 

Paid admission to the 2011 IDPF Digital Book Conference includes free admission to BookExpo America trade show including the IDPF Digital Zone.

The International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) is a non-profit trade and standards organization for the digital publishing industry representing over 200 companies and organizations.

37. Book Expo America opens in NYC on May 24

Book Expo America returns to New York City’s Javits Center for events starting May 24 and, back by popular demand, the show will return to three full days in the exhibit hall. 

With a little something for everyone, “the largest publishing event in North America” is sure to be a blockbuster this year.

For those looking to see the celebs:  Headliners for this year’s events include actresses Diane Keaton and Julianne Moore, media personality Jim Lehrer, and famed writers Katherine Patterson, Erik Larson, Anne Enright, Jeffrey Eugenides, and Charlaine Harris.

For those with an international focus:  The Global Market Forum, which is an international highlight each year, will focus on Publishing in Italy.  This year’s program will be produced with the support of the Italian Trade Commission and the Associazione Italiana Editori.

For those with a digital interest:  This year, the second annual Book Blogger Convention joins BEA on-site on May 27 with a cocktail reception on the 26th. 

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

April

April 11-13. London Book Fair . www.londonbookfair.co.uk

April 30-May 1. Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. After 15 years at the UCLA campus in Westwood, the festival, which has grown into one of the biggest in the country, is moving to the University of Southern California's University Park Campus, near downtown Los Angeles. Last year, more than 140,000 people attended.
April 30- May 2. Museum Store Association’s Retail Conference & Expo.

April 30-May 1. Boston Comic Con, Hynes Convention Center.

May

May 23-26. BookExpo America, New York.  www.bookexpoamerica.com  

National Stationery Show,  New York.

June

June 24-29. American Library Association, Washington, DC. www.ala.org

June 27–30. ICRS - International Christian Retail Show,  St. Louis, Mo www.christianretailshow.com

Printers Row Book Fair, Chicago. http://www.chicagotribune.com/about/events/printersrow  

The Australian Booksellers Association's, Melbourne. The International New Age Trade Show West 

July

July 21-24. Comic-Con International, San Diego, Calif. The grandfather of all comics shows, which began in 1970, and capped its attendance at 125,000 three years ago.
 

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Contact Information

Telephone:

770-938-0289

 

Fax:

770-493-7232

 

Postal address:

P.O. Box 2694, Tucker, GA 30085-2694

 

Ground Delivery and Mail Address:

Anvil Publishers, 3852 Allsborough Drive, Tucker, GA 30084

 

Electronic mail:

General Information: custserv@anvilpub.com

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Last modified: 03/28/11