Byliner, one of several publishers specializing in e-books longer than a magazine article and shorter than full-length books, has announced it will now publish fiction as well as non-fiction. “Rules for Virgins,” a 43-page story by Amy Tan, is the first work of fiction from the author of The Joy Luck Club in six years. Read More
Earlier this week, a glitch in the Amazon matrix caused some readers of Haruki Murakami’s new novel 1Q84 to mistakenly conclude that the Kindle version of the book is only available for reading on one device rather than the usual six. This turned out to be a mistake, but before the problem was resolved a half dozen readers left one star reviews on the page for 1Q84. Read More
Andrew Wylie is at it again! Speaking to the British industry publication The Bookseller at the Frankfurt Book Fair, Mr. Wylie advocated for more author-friendly royalty rates for digital book sales. “Publishers should pay a 5o percent digital royalty and digital distributors should not be charging 30 percent—zero would be attractive,” he said. Read More
NPR’s Morning edition had self-publishing advocate turned Amazon publishing advocate Barry Eisler on for an interview today. He talked about his decision to walk away from a six-figure book deal with St. Martin’s Press earlier this year and to publish his book with Amazon’s thriller imprint Thomas & Mercer instead. Read More
Amy Winehouse’s untimely death was only two weeks ago, but already an e-book is being sold on Amazon. Its author is one Andy Morris, described as “a freelance journalist from Britain who lives in San Francisco” although also self-described as an American.
It looks like a really excellent book because the author describes an Read More
Judge Denny Chin expressed frustration at a hearing today about how long everyone is taking to come up with a plan for a settlement between the Author’s Guild and the Association of American Publishers (plaintiffs) and Google Books (defendant). At issue is just how Google will compensate writers whose books it scans while the work Read More
The Transom recently learned that Emily Gould—former employee of publishing house Hyperion, blogger at Gawker, memoirist, and New York Times Magazine cover-writer—is setting out on a venture with close friend Ruth Curry to sell e-books, online, through an e-tail site called Emily Books.
Readers with long memories and obsessive streaks might recall Ms. Curry as Read More
While publishers were still reeling over the details of Apple’s new app store subscription service, Google this morning announced its long-expected competitor, OnePass.
The long and short of it: Apple’s service is slightly better for users, because the company has said it won’t share customer information with publishers. In an attempt to draw publishers Read More
Now it’s official: As was presaged at the launch of News Corp.’s The Daily, Apple today is rolling out a new subscription model for digital content publishers who distribute via the App Store. The details of the plan mirror those outlined for The Daily, Apple said:
Publishers set the price and length of Read More
Condé Nast announced today that it will use Adobe Digital Publishing Suite to create the digital editions of all its print publications.
Just this past April, Apple CEO Steve Jobs attacked mobile apps created using Adobe Flash. He wanted glossy publishers like Condé Nast to use Apple’s proprietary development tools.
Condé has a lot riding Read More
Affordable Housing or Lack Thereof
