Until I opened an email this morning from a publicist at the Penguin Group (USA), who'd sent me a press release about the company's newest so-called "creativity app," The Pocket Scavenger, I was under the impression that I was at least somewhat tuned in to the world of Android apps. But apparently, not so much. Penguin, it seems, has been busy releasing quite an impressive suite of creativity apps lately, and like their latest, The Pocket Scavenger, many are based on the books of author, illustrator and self-described guerrilla artist Keri Smith. Smith writes books that are not only about creativity, but that actually encourage it...

Penguin Group’s self-publishing service, Author Solutions, is being sued, Courthouse News Service reported earlier this week. The complaint by three authors states that Author Solutions cheated them out of royalties and charged them for typos that were inserted by the company. There was an interesting passage in the Courthouse News Service article that gave financial and statistical information about Author Solutions. "Author Solutions' revenues are estimated at $100 million per year," the complaint states. "Of the $100 million Author Solutions earns as revenue, approximately one third of that amount, or millions annually, comes from book sales. The rest of its revenue is derived from...

We aren't normally in the business of sharing stock picks here at TeleRead. But for the past three days, one of the biggest stories on the e-reading beat has been the news that Pearson—the British educational media company that owns the Financial Times and the Penguin Group—just invested $89.5 million in Barnes & Noble's Nook Media division, equalling a five percent equity stake. Business publications and financial journalists, of course, have responded en masse by sharing their own opinions about which companies in the e-reading space are headed for greatness, and which ones may have taken too many financial missteps already. As a...

Amazon May Have to Close Kindle India Store (The Digital Reader) Infographic (see below) - Free Textbooks in California (Textbook Guru) The Penguin Group Launches Graphic Novel Imprint (Good E-Reader) Literary Agent Says: Big Book Publishers Not Innovating Fast Enough (Media Shift) Kindle Daily Deal: Valeria's Last Stand (and) Flora Segunda *  *  *  ...

Bloomberg Businessweek seems to have been one of the first publications to report that 54 attorneys general in (49 states and five American territories) have collectively reached a $69 million antitrust settlement with Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers LLC and Simon & Schuster Inc., "over alleged price-fixing for electronic books." According to a press release from the Office of the Attorney General of the State of Connecticut, the three publishers "have agreed to pay a total of more than $69 million to consumers to resolve antitrust claims of an alleged unlawful conspiracy to fix the prices of electronic books (eBooks). They have also...

The long-delayed march of the Penguins? It wasn't worth the wait. After its agency price-fixing model co-conspirators came quickly to agreements with Amazon so that their ebook titles would remain in the Kindle Store right through the April Fool's Day transition date, the Penguin Publishing Group held readers hostage for about 8 weeks before finally reaching the end of the impasse, reported here moments before it was announced last week. Penguin has a terrific backlist and plenty of popular bestselling authors, and Kindle owners were waiting impatiently for an opportunity to purchase and download various among about 150 of the company's new...