Category: publishing

“The online division of Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N) said on Thursday that it is pricing the top 10 pre-selling books on its website at $10 each, including free shipping.” The retailer is also “cutting the price of 200 of the nation’s best-selling books … by 50 percent or more from their listing price.”

“[A] Philadelphia bookstore that specializes in urban fiction is flourishing. Many of the titles are written by people who live in Philly.” And what, exactly, is “urban fiction”? “[G]ritty, explicit tales that involve drugs, crime, and violence set in urban neighborhoods like the one surrounding this bookstore.”

Coming out next month, “San Francisco Panorama will be a fat fellow, Sunday-edition-sized, and include news features, sports, short fiction, arts coverage, original graphics and pages and pages of original comics. … The editors promise that Panorama is a one-off and not Volume One, No. 1 of a new publication.”

“Books about Henry Ford’s failed jungle experiment and a Faulkneresque novel about the lasting effects of war on memory are among the finalists for the 2009 National Book Award,” given by the National Book Foundation.

“Eager to attract digitally savvy patrons and capitalize on the growing popularity of electronic readers, public libraries across the country are expanding collections of books that reside on servers rather than shelves.”

“Sixteen months after stepping down as president and chief executive of HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide, Jane Friedman has formed a new company that will republish old titles by big-name authors including William Styron, Iris Murdoch and Pat Conroy in electronic form.”

Most of Nobel laureate Herta Muller’s books have not been translated into English. “Only five of her more than 20 books have been published in English, giving her few choices among consumers despite the immediate popularity bestowed upon Nobel laureates.”

“UCLA’s Clark Library is to receive a collection of 72 books related to Shakespeare that includes a 1685 fourth folio of his works, two histories that formed the basis of his plays and a 1603 book by Montaigne that introduced the playwright to the words ‘adulterous,’ ‘miraculous,’ ‘depraved’ and ‘scandalous’.”

“Jeremy Fisher, executive director of the Australian Society of Authors, said he was advising his 3000 members to resist publishing through the Kindle.” What’s more, Australian users will pay 20 percent more per e-book than US customers.

“Calculated by the Pennsylvania Library Association yesterday, the statewide subsidy decreased by $15.1 million from the current $75.1 million. … The Legislature also eliminated one major program — the Electronic Library Catalog that links facilities around the state to provide reference material via the Internet.”