Category: publishing

“It’s tempting – Google certainly encourages this – to see the age of MicrAmazoogle as revolutionary, a thrilling new era in which the civilised world can airbrush the imperfections of the past and march into a new dawn.” But “from print culture’s beginnings to the rise of the internet, there has been a succession of intellectual property wars for which the English language has just one word: piracy.”

“Herb Simon, the owner of the Indiana Pacers of the N.B.A., and chairman emeritus of the shopping mall developer Simon Property Group, has bought the venerable journal of prepublication book reviews from the Nielsen Company, which announced in December it was closing the magazine.”

“It usually takes an author decades to win fawning reviews, march up the best-seller list and become a finalist for a major book prize. Helene Hegemann, just 17, did it with her first book, all in the space of a few weeks, and despite a savaging from critics over plagiarism.”

“Keeping traditional school libraries up to date is costly, with the constant need to acquire new books and to find space to store them. Yet for all that trouble, students roam the stacks less and less because they find it so much more efficient to work online.” A “Room for Debate” roundtable asks, “What are the educational consequences of having students read less on the printed page and more on the Web?”

“While many independent bookstores nationwide have shut over the years, Marcus Books’ travails are rooted in a double-whammy specific to the Bay Area: the recession coupled with a long-term exodus of African-Americans from San Francisco.”

“The angry commenters on Amazon and online message boards,” who wage hostilities whenever an e-book price creeps above $9.99, “could just be a vocal minority. But now, with e-books scheduled to cost $12.99 to $14.99 under new deals that publishers negotiated with Apple and Amazon, a broader swath of customers may resist the new pricing.”

Its sexologist founder “envisioned the salon as a safe enclave for women, but opened to both sexes when the initial location … balked at excluding men. Now she attracts 50-50. Surprisingly, men often write and read innuendo, she said, while women lay it all – and we do mean all – out there.”

“I have several books listed on Amazon, so I flick from one to another, looking to see if perhaps, while I was sleeping, one of my titles suddenly became wildly, breathtakingly popular and sold a gazillion copies. Then, last week, something strange happened. … There was no way to ‘Add to Shopping Cart.'”

“Dante’s Inferno proves it: Classic literature is a videogame gold mine.” Wired‘s Game|Life blog suggests “10 more books that would make totally kick-ass games.” Some make perfect sense (Gulliver’s Travels, Moby-Dick); others, maybe not so much (The Metamorphosis, Siddhartha).

“With independents blaming increased competition from the internet, supermarkets, a declining British high street and the credit crunch for their troubles, figures from the Booksellers Association show that 102 independent stores closed in 2009, leaving just 1,289 left in the UK – a decline of 27% since 1999.”