The New York Times has an interesting piece by Julie Bosman positing that, thanks to the ease with which e-books now allow authors to publish and self-publish, and let readers buy instantaneously, authors are now feeling “obligated” to write more, faster. Rather than publish the “usual” one book per year, authors are pressured to “[pull] the literary equivalent of a double shift” and write more frequently. “It used to be that once a year was a big deal,” said Lisa Scottoline, a best-selling author of thrillers. “You could saturate the market. But today the culture is...

In honor of Mother’s Day, Barnes & Noble has chopped $20 off the price of its (non-glowlit) Nook Simple Touch, which can now be had for $79, and the Nook Color, which is now $149. The sale lasts until May 12th. This deal makes the Nook cost the same as Amazon’s ad-supported Kindle, but without the ads—currently the lowest price for a non-refurbished e-ink reader. Meanwhile, if you’d ever wondered just how big this e-book thing was really getting. GigaOm reports that, with Microsoft’s recent investment in Barnes & Noble’s Nook subsidiary, the subsidiary is currently valued at $1.7...

Would you like your Kindle case to look like a paper book? If so, Mashable has a slide show of ten different cases that imitate the appearance of paper books in one way or another. Some are commercially-manufactured, but there are also ones you can commission through crafts site Etsy if you’re not up to the task of crafting one yourself. It’s interesting to see how many different ways there are to make a Kindle look, from the outside, like a paper book. Might these ease the pain for those people who prefer the look and feel of classic...

One of the things heralded by the Department of Justice settlement is that it might allow book/e-book sellers to experiment with new ways of selling or packaging their products. Jane Litte at Dear Author writes about three possible experimental models she would like to see bookstores and publishers try out. One model is adding different types of subscription offerings, like Audible.com’s monthly audiobook memberships. If publishers with extensive backlists offered subscription pricing for older books, it could lead to selling more of their new books. She also proposes selling “best of” bundles, in which part or all of a...

Everyone is paying attention to the e-book pricing fight against Amazon right now, but Bloomberg Businessweek reports there’s another disagreement going on between Amazon and the publishers behind the scenes that nobody has really noticed: the question of print on demand. Amazon already offers its own print on demand services, used for mainly for small independent or self-publishing, and the technology has gotten a lot better over the fifteen years since it was introduced—print-on-demand titles are by now largely indistinguishable from large-print-run paperbacks. The rub is that Amazon would like to expand its print-on-demand operations so that it can print copies of...

I’ve mentioned a time or two the personalized Disney’s Jungle Book children’s book tie-in that my parents got for me one Christmas. Printed in a rough font that I retrospectively recognized as coming from a mainframe line printer, it would never pass muster in the print-on-demand world of today, though as I pointed out when I first mentioned it, there are print-on-demand operations that exist to do much the same thing today in more polished form. Well, lately I’ve heard (via Galleycat) about one that takes the cake for sheer chutzpah. Rather than producing original fiction with the names...

Ever wondered what causes the smell of old books? According to Richard from AbeBooks, chemists at University College, London have determined that “old books release hundreds of volatile organic compounds into the air from the paper.” This is often associated with the decay of the acidic paper that a lot of these books were printed on. See the video embedded below the jump. Funny to think that the classic smell of old books is actually the aroma of paper rotting. Of course, this isn’t necessarily the same thing as the smell of more recent books, which book...

The name is Zon. Ama Zon. In 2010, the Fleming estate chose not to renew its publishing contract with Penguin for the James Bond novels, and proceeded to release them electronically in the UK via Amazon, Waterstones, and other e-book retailers. In March of this year, Random imprint Vintage Books acquired the world publishing rights for ten years to the 14 Fleming Bond novels and two nonfiction titles, but not the US or Canadian rights. It wasn’t clear who would be the North American publisher. But now we know: the books are back with Amazon again, but this...

As we see more and more articles about the DoJ vs. publishers thing, with more and more of them saying the same thing, they start to become worth mentioning more for how they differ from others. For example, CBS News has a summary that explains what’s going on, but also links to Joe Konrath and Barry Eisler’s defenestration of Authors Guild president Scott Turow’s statement condemning the suit and settlement, which I hadn’t seen before and makes for some fun reading: Barry: Look, you can build a business by forcing your choices on consumers (commonly known...

Ever had the experience of trying to find an out-of-print book and discovering it was only available at premium prices? The experience drives some people to pirate the book they want, since they can’t get it at what they consider a reasonable price. But when author Frank Giovinazzi discovered one of his favorite books was in that situation, he went in the opposite direction. Giovinazzi found the self-help book How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World by two-time Libertarian Presidential candidate Harry Browne was selling at prices of $30 to $100 on eBay and Amazon. Self-help books usually...

Remember when Barnes & Noble proclaimed it would not carry any books offered by Amazon publishers (in stores—if people wanted to order them from BN.com, they would be happy to ship them) if B&N would not be able to carry the e-book versions for its Nook? At the time, I wrote: B&N is making a lot of noise, but then turning around and trying to have its cake and eat it too. I predict this principled stand will last only until Amazon comes out with a best-selling title that everyone wants to get their hands on....

CNet has an interview with Kevin Smith in which he talks about his newest movies, his presence on the Internet, and the recent uproar over the MPAA giving an R rating to a movie made for children. But Smith also discusses his new book, Tough Sh*t: Life Advice from a Fat, Lazy Slob who did Good. Smith reports that he sold more electronic copies of it than paper copies. Is that disappointing to you that you sold more e-books than physical ones? Smith: God, no. Heavens, no. I don't have...