The Bookseller is reporting on reactions from BookExpo America to Amazon’s choice of former TimeWarner CEO turned agent Laurence Kirshbaum to head up its publishing division. Independent booksellers were fairly optimistic, some suspecting Amazon might even offer them better deals than chain bookstores due to potential pushback from chains who see Amazon as their chief competitor. Publishers were more worried, however, fearing that the Amazon move could reduce competition. Agent Richard Curtis, who also runs E-Reads, said: "However, because of Amazon's dominant retail position, their wealth and leverage could have a dampening effect on...

Peter Kafka at the “MediaMemo” section of AllThingsD points to a job listing with Amazon for someone to help build “an innovative embedded web browser.” He notes that the current Kindle browser is fairly limited, and adding a better one could be a significant change for the device. Certainly it would be helpful in competing with the iPad. At the moment, the Kindle is the only major e-book device to offer any kind of web access at all. Samsung’s E-6 e-reader will be coming this spring to Barnes & Noble at a list price of $299 (down...

Now this makes a lot of sense, especially since the two are usually held fairly close together. It will also give the IDPF a much wider audience. Here's an excerpt from the press release: Officials at the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) and BookExpo America (BEA) have today announced a partnership which will bring the highly regarded IDPF Digital Book 2010 Conference to the Javits Center during BEA, May 25 – 27, 2010. The IDPF Digital Book Conference, which has consistently been sold-out in past years, has traditionally taken place in New York City a few weeks prior...

Newsweek is confident they’re not dead yet. It points out that the number of books in print in 2008 was up by 38% over the year before—for the second year in a row. Newsweek lays the credit mostly at the feet of Google Books—or, more accurately, a side-effect of Google digitizing all those books from university libraries. Quite apart from Google making them available for sale electronically (depending on whether the pending settlement goes through), the universities themselves have been offering out-of-print or public domain titles for sale through print-on-demand company BookSurge. Of course, those books being...

I'm at the show this morning and I stopped by the Ingram booth to say hello.  They told me that, from their viewpoint, the show has been very successful on the digital end.  They said that last year people were asking them to explain what all this digital stuff was, but this year people seem to know all that and are talking about implementation.  They said that they are getting a lot of interest from hardware manufacturers, so Amazon may be seeing some competition in the future. Update:  As I was leaving I ran into the CEO of Overdrive and told...

Here's a shot of Sarah Wendell (left) from Smart Bitches, and Jessica Kennedy from Books Reviews by Jess. I'll be at the Net Galley booth #4077 at noon on Sunday. The final panel I attended was on, and by, book review bloggers. The panel included Stephanie Coleman-Chan of Stephanie's Written Word, Jennifer Hart of Book Club Girl, Candace Levy of Beth Fish Reads, Natasha Maw of Maw Books, Julie Peterson of Booking Mama, Amy Riley of My Friend Amuy and Dawn Rennert of She is Too Fond of Books. It was given in one of the largest rooms...

At BookExpo I attended a workshop on copyright enforcement. It was a joint presentation by the Association of American Publishers and the U.K. Publishers Association. They presented a whole bunch of info on how much infringement there was, how many evil sites there are and gave some plain misinformation about the Pirate Bay case. I was going to write it up and give you the details, but something about it kept nagging at me and I realized, today, what a sorry thing it was. The thrust of the presentations was how good they were in issuing, and...

Got the following email from Simon Owens: Hey Paul, I saw it mentioned on Follow the Reader that you're going to be featured in the blogger signing at BEA. I recently got a chance to interview Kat Meyer and several of the participants of the event for an article I published about the signing: http://bloggasm.com/can-i-have-your-blogograph Anyway, I thought this was something you and your readers would find interesting. take care, Simon I went over there...

Here's a shot of them setting up the Expo floor, taken from the Press Room. At a general press conference about the show we were told Attendance is down 14% from 2007 in New York, but up 36% from 2008 in LA. Exhibitor registration is down 10-15% from last year and square footage is down 21% Michael Smith of the IDPF organized a panel about marketing ebooks that played to standing room only. The place was packed and, by a show of hands, they were almost all...

The press facilities here are the worst I've ever seen at a major show.  There's no WiFi and the Ethernet access doesn't work.  The "press center" has 3 old Pentium 4 computers with floppy disks!  I haven't seen a floppy in years!  Well, once things get started these 3 poor old computers will be swamped so it doesn't look like I'll be able to post until I get home.  No real time updates from this show.  Tomorrow I probably won't even bother to take my computer with me.  Good old pen and paper will work just fine....

I'll be at BEA Thursday through Sunday, looking around and reporting to you on what I find interesting. If any of you will be there you should check out the Firebrand booth, #4077, as 44 bloggers have signed up to meet their readers. GalleyCat, Tools of Change, Booksquare, Smart Bitches, and many others will be present. I'll be at the booth at noon on Sunday if any of you want to, or dare to, come by. You can find the complete blogger signing schedule here....

I will be at BEA Thursday through Sunday to cover it for you guys. I've never been to one before so I am quite curious about the whole affair. It seems like a lot of time to devote to just one topic, but I'll see. As part of the event the Follow the Reader Blog has organized a "Blogger Signing" event. I will be at their booth on Sunday, at noon, if anyone wants to drop by and see what I look like. The whole schedule for the event is too long to publish, but go over...