The publishing industry (understandably) made a lot of noise last November when the news broke that self-improvement author Tim Ferriss would be promoting his newest book project, The 4-Hour Chef, on BitTorrent, a site that will probably always be associated with illegal online file-sharing. The promotion—a free, downloadable BitTorrent bundle that includes interviews, candid author photos, the first chapter of the book and more—was at least partly conceived as a response to Barnes & Noble, which has publicly refused to carry any books published by Amazon, its top competitor. According to an article by USA Today reporter Dierdre Donahue, a number of independent bookstores have followed B&N's boycotting lead,...

Out of Touch: E-reading isn't reading (Slate) Hey Tim Ferriss: Book banning isn't a marketing gimmick (Paid Content) With Amazon Publishing Stonewalled By Retailers, Tim Ferriss Taps BitTorrent To Market His New Book (Tech Crunch) Dave Eggers: 4 Spot-on TED Talks (Mashable) Kindle Daily Deal: Freeman by Leonard Pitts, Jr. {and} Promises to the Dead by Mary Downing Hahn * * *    ...

Yesterday, shoppers discovered that Barnes & Noble is carrying books from Amazon Publishing’s New York imprint in stores around the country, despite the company’s insistence that it wouldn’t do so. Following our story’s publication yesterday, I learned that Barnes & Noble headquarters sent an email to its branches around the country telling them to pull the Amazon titles (which are being published and distributed in print by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt under an imprint called New Harvest). This morning, a Barnes & Noble spokeswoman told me, “Our policy has not changed. We are not carrying Amazon titles.”... Read Full Article ... Source: Paid Content...

Amazon seems to be doing an especially solid job lately of keeping itself in the news and on the collective radars of digital publishing trend-watchers. Today, another potentially important e-publishing story began making the rounds after Paid Content got its hands on an email from Amazon Publishing VP Jeff Belle, which was sent to an undisclosed number of literary agents. In the email, Belle (in photo at right) shares select sales numbers from a few of the company's imprints—and the numbers are impressive. The following comes from the International Herald-Tribune, which also covered the story today: "We've been energized by the early results across...

From an article in paidContent: Amazon is selling at least two Amazon Publishing e-books in other digital bookstores, Publishers Lunchdiscovered (paywall) last night. Until now, it has sold its e-books exclusively through the Kindle Store. The books are Oliver Pötzsch’s bestselling “The Hangman’s Daughter” and the sequel to that book, “The Dark Monk,” released on Tuesday. “The Hangman’s Daughter,” with a digital list price of $9.99, is $3.99 in the Kindle Store (or free in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library). It’s $8.99 in Barnes & Noble’s Nook store, $9.99 in the iBookstore and $7.69 at Kobo. “The Dark Monk,” with a digital list price of $9.99, is$7.69 in the Kindle Store (or free in the...

From the press release: Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Marshall Cavendish, one of the world’s leading educational and consumer book publishers and classroom digital solutions providers, today announced that Amazon has signed a deal to acquire over 450 titles of its US Children’s trade books business, Marshall Cavendish Children’s Books (MCCB). The list from Marshall Cavendish Children’s Books has been nominated for more than 150 industry awards and includes a diverse range of titles including “The Night Before Christmas” illustrated by Gennady Spirin, “Three Little Tamales” by Eric A. Kimmel, “Chalk” by Bill Thomson and “Yellow Star” by Jennifer Roy, as well...

From the press release: Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced the launch of 47North, the seventh imprint from Amazon Publishing, focused on science fiction, fantasy and horror. 47North launches with 15 books, including “The Mongoliad: Book One,” the first in the ambitious, five-book, collaborative Foreworld series led by Neal Stephenson and Greg Bear. All of these books will be available to English readers in Kindle, print and audio formats at www.amazon.com, as well as at national and independent booksellers. 47North will publish original and previously published works, as well as out-of-print books.  “Amazon customers have a huge appetite for science fiction,...

From the press release: Last year, Tom Rachman's debut novel "The Imperfectionists" became an instant best seller after earning a cover rave from Christopher Buckley in the New York Times Book Review, landing on numerous Top 10 lists and appearing on the Amazon editors' list of the Best Books of 2010. Today, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) announced that Tom Rachman has published his first short story exclusively...

Recently I’ve written a post on piracy, but there is another issue related to international availability of Kindle devices. It’s a lack of non-English content at Kindle Store. Currently there are 6 languages supported in Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing platform: English, Spanish, German, French, Italian and Portuguese (it was 16 two months ago – the question is why the number was reduced). That means that it’s easy to publish a book in any of those languages and it’s extremely difficult, yet still possible, to publish in any other language. There are 170 countries to which Kindle devices ...

Moco News reports: Today Bits reports that commenters on Warrior Forum—the site where those autopilot Kindle cash DVDs are sold—have found Amazon yanking their PLR content. An Amazon spokeswoman told the NYT, “We have worked steadily to build processes to detect and remove undifferentiated or barely differentiated versions of e-books.” Here’s the e-mail from Amazon that one Kindle spammer pasted into Warrior Forum: Hello, We’re contacting you regarding books you recently submitted via Kindle Direct Publishing. Certain of these books are either undifferentiated or barely differentiated from an existing title in the Kindle store. We remove such duplicate (or...

From the press release: Amazon.com today announced that Amazon Publishing has acquired the publication rights of 35 titles in the 87th Precinct Series—including “The Con Man” and “The Mugger”—by author Ed McBain. These books will be published by the Thomas & Mercer imprint in print, digital and audio formats starting in Fall 2011. In addition to the 87th Precinct titles, Thomas & Mercer will publish 12 ...

From the press release: Amazon.com today announced that Amazon Publishing will publish 32 books in late summer and early fall under its various imprints, including AmazonEncore, AmazonCrossing and Thomas & Mercer. The Amazon Publishing editions of these titles will be available in print format athttp://www.amazon.com/ and national and independent booksellers, and as wireless digital downloads in less than 60 seconds from the Kindle Store (www.amazon.com/kindlestore). "We're excited to be growing Amazon Publishing's imprints, as well as the number and variety of titles we're able to make available to more readers," said Victoria Griffith, Publisher, Amazon Publishing. "We hope readers enjoy books from...