Self-publishing means anyone can put out a book—from first-time authors trying to make a name for themselves, to celebrities who have the star power necessary to move units. The next big name to jump into the self-publishing fray? Actor Jim Carrey. According to a video interview Carrey conducted with the website, Hit Fix he's publishing a children’s book titled How Roland Rolls. “It's a story about a wave named Roland," Carrey told Hit Fix, who's afraid when one day he hits the beach [that] his life is going to be over. It’s deep. He’s struck by the notion that he’s not just the wave—that he’s the...

I actually made a private pact with myself yesterday that we wouldn't run any more Google stories on TeleRead, at least for a few days. Over the past couple weeks, it almost feels as if the site has morphed into something of a Google wire service. But then Joanna Cabot filed her daily Morning Links roundup this morning, and one of the items nearly took my breath away: Google has decided to kill off the print editions of all its Frommer's travel guidebooks. The Frommer's brand, don't forget, was sold to Google just seven months ago by its previous owner, Wiley, for a...

We've finally tipped the balance, according to a recent Bowkers study. In the U.S., through November, in 2012, almost 44 percent of books were sold online, versus almost 32 percent sold in large retail chains, independent bookstores, other mass merchandisers and supermarkets. No, they weren't all e-books, but a goodly percentage of them were. Twenty-eight percent of all book purchases in the U.S. were e-books. According to the study, supermarkets, mass merchandisers and indie bookstores held their market share while big-chain bookstores lost share. DBW speculates the demise of Borders might be a significant part of that, and it sounds reasonable to...

While it’s odd to think of an organization backed by the  Penguin, Hachette and Simon & Schuster as a startup, Bookish, the new book-recommendation and -discovery site is essentially that. After two years in development under three CEOs, Bookish is now a reality, a place where users can get recommendations—based on titles or groups of titles they know they already like—and then, importantly, purchase them. Like the Random House project BookScout, the idea, on one level, is to facilitate discovery across the industry, for the good of the industry. And while users can discover just about any book, the books they can purchase...

It sounds suspiciously like a story from The Onion: 'Fifty Shades' author to publish writing guide. But nope—it's actually a real-life AP wire story that appeared on the Philadelphia Inquirer's website this morning. Scheduled to be published on May 1 by Random House's Vintage imprint, Fifty Shades of Grey: Inner Goddess (A Journal) will be a combination of author E.L. James' professional writing advice and—get this—blank journal pages for readers to fill with their own words. Wow. You definitely don't need an English lit degree to see this book for what it is: A fairly easy way to make a pile of money by cashing in...

It's a snowy day in our nation's capital, and watching the flakes fall has made me contemplative. I've been reading a number of historical and fantasy books in worlds and times where books were rare, precious and valued. I can't help but contrast that to today, when people can download thousands of free books to their e-reader of choice. What impact does that have on our perceived value of a book? I thought back and compared my reading habits now to when I was a child (and books were relatively rare—I had to wait for Christmas or birthdays, and use my scant...

You may remember a post we ran last Monday about Waterstones Academy, a sort of university for retail booksellers that looks as if it may be launching in England sometime later this year. Waterstones, for those of you not familiar with the name, is a UK-based bookstore chain with some 288 locations dotted throughout the UK and mainland Europe. Courtesy of The Bookseller, we learned that the nine-month-long program, assuming it happens, will be operated through a partnership with the University of Derby, a public school located south of Manchester that's currently home to a little over 22,000 students. (The Academy will also be accredited through...

Last month I wrote about eBookPlus, a startup that wanted to make books free, with ads. To say I wasn't thrilled would be an understatement. Most of you who commented on the post agreed with me. Forbes had an article today on another startup, HitBliss, that might actually have it right. From Forbes: The Lexington, Mass. company, run by husband and wife team Andrew Prihodko and Sharon Peyer, operates a Netflix-like app for iOS and Android that gives users access to a whole slew of TV shows and movies. But all that’s a sideshow; the payment method is what’s interesting here. Customers can...

We recently had our Family Day long weekend, and the Beloved and I spent some of it at the home of his sister. She's the mother of a toddler and a newborn, and while we were visiting, the subject of books came up. I enjoyed having the opportunity to pick the brain of a parent on this particular subject. (What did this mom think were the biggest mistakes children's book publishers are making? What does she look for when she shops for her kids?) Some of her comments surprised me. 1. Children's Book Advertising Why aren't they doing this? That was her biggest...

There was an interesting article in yesterday's Morning Links about the 'gamification' of books. I had first heard this term in response to the Reading Life feature on the Kobo platform, which awards you 'badges' for such activities as reading at a certain time in the day, reading a certain number of books, using a dictionary or bookmark feature, and so on. But this article was coming at it from a different aspect: using the 'concept of game mechanics' to 'pull the reader through a book.' Jeremy Greenfield of Digital Book World, the article's author, suggests applying these strategies to children's...

The Bookseller recently published what appears to be a very interesting article about a sort of bookseller's university that Waterstones—the UK-based bookstore chain—plans to open at some point in the near-to-distant future. And I use the term "appears," by the way, because the article in question in available only to subscribers of the website's premium content, of which I am not one. Bummer. The article's abstract, at any rate, claims that Waterstones Academy, as the school will be known, will be an "industry first" in the UK. Students of the nine month-long program, which will be operated in partnership with the...

Love or hate e-books, so many people at least have an opinion on the topic. Rich Adin at the blog An American Editor writes, "Are eBooks the Death Knell of Authorial Greatness?" Adin is an e-book reader, but he seems worried that authors may never be considered great again because of the physical absence of books. "Part of the problem, I think, is that recalling my library books involves a visual scan of its shelves, something that is easy to do with shelves of hardcover books staring at me and difficult to do with e-books because that casual eyescan is not as readily accomplished. This...