Last week we carried a story about a claim that Random House was going to let libraries “own” its e-books. However, it turns out that “own” may have been an optimistic oversimplification. Peter Brantley, Director of the Bookserver Project at the Internet Archive, writes at Publishers Weekly that he's had some follow-up discussion with Skip Dye, Random House’s VP of Library and Academic Sales, to get clarification on exactly what “own” meant in that context. (Found via TechDirt.) What Random House actually meant was that it would assist libraries in moving e-books from one “authorized library wholesaler” to another. The publisher...

Best-selling author Kristen Lamb has a long and thoughtful article on her blog.  It is well worth reading the entire thing.  Her five mistakes are: Mistake #1—Fear Mistake #2—Paper is Married to Petroleum DOOM Mistake #3—Reliance on Outdated Gimmicky Marketing Tactics Mistake #4—Over-Fixation on Tools Mistake #5—Expecting Commerce Before Community Here's an excerpt: Mistake #1—Fear When I first arrived, there was almost a palpable feeling of dread, doom and gloom. I felt like agents, editors and even writers were refusing to acknowledge the pink elephant in the room. Why? Because they were afraid of it. The paradigm is changing and the world is going digital. No matter how many...

Doctor Science, the blogger who wrote a couple of installments on the Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon last month that I blogged about at the time, actually wrote a third piece, which I only just noticed when I went back to check references for the fanfic article I posted earlier. The first two parts talked about “the decline of the publishing industry,” indicating that (at least in some cases) fans were providing a lot better value when it came to editing fanfics than publishers were to editing submitted manuscripts. (Not surprising, in light of a study showing that...

paidContent's annual conference will be held in New York on May 23.  I'll be there covering the event for you. There will be a number of speakers in the ebook/epublishing arena including: James McQuivey, VP, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research Bob Sauerberg, President, Conde Nast Nick Bogaty, Director of Business Development, Digital Publishing Group, Adobe Systems Liz Schimel, EVP and Chief Digital Officer, Meredith National Media Group Jonathan Shar, GM, Digital Newsstand and Emerging Content, Barnes & Noble Jim Bankoff, Chairman, CEO, Vox Media John Paton, CEO, Digital First Media Charlie Redmayne, CEO, Pottermore...

From the Booknet Canada Technology Forum that took place in March. Direct to Video Blurb As publishers get deeper into digital, accessible data is not a niche but an imperative. Matt Garrish, author of the upcoming Accessible EPUB 3 O’Reilly guide will go over EPUB 3’s accessibility features, going over enhancements and how DAISY talking book standards merged into EPUB, while demonstrating what’s now possible thanks to this upgrade. Links to More Video Talks from the Forum (Via LJ INFOdocket.)...

From The Guardian's Books Blog: ... Most of these e-novels are "pure entertainment, written, downloaded, read and deleted all at top speed …" but e–publishing attracts serious writers as well, for a rather different reason: it offers a smidgen of freedom from censorship regulations which hamstring conventional publishers. One very successful internet author is Murong Xuecun. In 2002, he put his first novel Leave Me Alone: A Novel of Chengdu online. It caused enough of a stir to be taken up by a publisher, subsequently won prizes and has been translated. Murong has been, and continues to be, an outspoken critic of the Chinese system,...

The Scholarly Kitchen has a really interesting article about the ending of Britannica's print edition.  There's a lot more in the article and I suggest you read the whole thing: To those who believe that the Britannica is dead because it’s no longer publishing in print, I’d like to offer a small but significant correction: you’re right that it’s dead, but you’re wrong about the reason. The Britannica isn’t a victim of the obsolescence of print; it’s a victim of the ineffectiveness of portals. Let’s dispense with the format issue quickly. I don’t imagine I’ll attract too many outraged comments by pointing out that...

David Renard, Senior Analyst and Partner, mediaIDEAS, moderator:  publishers should be in the database marketing game. Matthew Cavner, VP Product & Business Development Vook:  worked with Flurry when created 800 enhanced ebooks.  Used a lot of audio and video.  In ebook applications can't track a lot of user data but you can in Apps.  Track how much people read, how much video they watched, where they watched the video.  With this tracking were able to change products.  Gave away a few books with Flurry in them just to get the user data.  Discovered that 3 formats worked.  Since titles were released into the network...

Booktype is a free, open source platform that produces beautiful, engaging books formatted for print, Kindle Store, iBookstore and almost any ereader - and it all can be done within minutes. This slick video is the introduction to Booktype. You can create books on your own or with others via an easy-to-use web interface. You can also build a community around your content with social tools and use the reach of mobile, tablet and ebook technology to engage new audiences. [Via EbookFriendly]...

Ewan Morrison has a long, and fascinating, article in The Guardian with the above title.  I would put it on the recommended reading list: All of this ebook talk is becoming a business in itself. Money is being made out of thin air in this strange new speculative meta-practice: there are seminars, conferences and courses springing up everywhere, even at the Society of Authors (a writers' union which, until recently, was largely against epublication). Television and radio programmes are being made about self-epublishing (I've personally been asked to speak about it on 12 occasions since...

Interesting article from Accredited Colleges Online.  Here's the beginning: Against piracy! Against the digital encroach! Against illiteracy! Against each other! Publishing, that cheeky teaser of mind, body, and soul, enjoys the same level of excitement and drama as other fields, if not more. As with every industry out there, it plays host to a crazy ensemble cast of heroes, villains, threats, challenges, underdogs, and other archetypes. Then conflict happens — or at least publishers come across a conflict that needs addressing. What follows are just some of the few exciting adventures that go down in the publishing world. Partnering with news outlets E-book...

Diane Duane has revised and relaunched another of her backlist as an e-book. This one, Stealing the Elf-King’s Roses, takes CSI-style forensic drama (though it was first published in 2002, the same year as the original CSI launched) and puts it into an SF/fantasy setting. It’s one of the few Duane books I haven’t gotten around to reading yet—but now I have a good excuse! Duane writes that she took the opportunity to fix a few issues she’d noticed in the book over the last ten years, including restoring some material that had previously been cut and rewriting the...