Whenever Stephen King releases a novel, readers line up to grab his latest book. But those looking to download the digital version of Joyland might never get the option. King will not release Joyland as an e-book when it comes out on June 4, according to the Wall Street Journal. King, an e-book pioneer, held on to the novel’s digital rights in hopes of spurring his fans to buy the print edition in bookstores. He said it is unclear when he will make the coming-of-age tale available digitally. “I have no plans for a digital version,” Mr. King said. “Maybe at some point,...

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...

Here's the problem with publishers' book discovery problem (Paid Content) Why Stephen King was wrong to publish 'Guns' as a Kindle Single (NY Daily News) Amazon to Investigate Claims of Worker Intimidation at German Centers (New York  Times) Publishing is tough these days — unless you're in nautical almanacs, apparently (The Guardian) Kindle Daily Deals: 'Beautiful Creatures' books for $2.99 (and 3 others)  ...

TeleRead posted earlier about an idea that was floated by Victoria Barnsley, a HarperCollins CEO, during a recent NPR interview: the idea of charging people for the privilege of browsing in bookstores. The idea was that they'd pay to browse, and then go home and order online from the vendor of their choosing. The analogy Barnsley gave with this was that of a high-end clothing store—say, for wedding dresses—charging a nominal trying fee that is taken out of the cost of your purchase. But I think that analogy is a faulty one, and I think the true analogy demonstrates why 'pay...

  By Brian Howard and James Sturdivant I own a Nook Simple Touch. Maybe it's because I root for underdogs or maybe it's because I chafe at platform lock-in and proprietary file formats, but I've been quite happy with life on the B&N ebook platform. Then, on Friday, Amazon announced its Stephen King Kindle Single exclusive, "Guns." In the short essay, King, whose book Rage had been linked to several instances of school violence, weighs in on the gun control issue. (King penned Rage as a high schooler. The book was published under his Richard Bachman pseudonym and has since been taken out of print  at the author's request.) I forked over the 99...

  Amazon.com today announced that the best-selling and iconic author Stephen King  has published a personal essay—“Guns”—available exclusively in the Kindle Store as a Kindle Single. This essay highlights one of the compelling features of Kindle Singles—they allow top authors to publish their works quickly. “Guns” is available now, exclusively in the Kindle Singles Store (www.amazon.com/kindlesingles) for $0.99. “I think the issue of an America awash in guns is one every citizen has to think about,” said King. “If this helps provoke constructive debate, I’ve done my job. Once I finished writing ‘Guns’ I wanted it published quickly, and Kindle Singles provided an excellent...

  Prior to becoming a household name, Stephen King did time as a high school English teacher and a laborer in an industrial laundry. These days, he could insulate his lovely Victorian home with crisp hundreds if such were his whim. Yet it seems he hasn’t forgotten what it’s like to watch every penny, wishing there was enough fat in the budget for the purchase of one measly comic book based on an insanely famous author’s obscure short story… Are generosity and the remembrance of past struggles motivating King to dole out artist Dennis “X-Men Noir” Calero’s graphic adaptation of his short story, “The Little Green God...

Here’s an intriguing experiment in e-publishing promotion. Scribner is going to release the new Stephen King short story “Mile 81” free to select members of the online-social-influence-ranking site Klout, a week before it goes on sale as an e-book single for $2.99. Apparently the idea builds on the marketing notion of identifying important trendsetters and influencers and pitching your product to them, enticing them to then pitch it to everybody else. It’s just that Klout seems to think it can measure exactly who those people are. Is this going to be a clever new way for authors to promote...

According to the Wall Street Journal, King made $80K for his novella "UR" written exclusively for Amazon. King says: I didn't do "Ur" for money. I did it because it was interesting. I'm fairly prolific. It took three days, and I've made about $80,000. You can't get that for short fiction from Playboy or anybody else. It's ridiculous. ...

Galleycat has a tidbit from a forthcoming Mediabistro feature on marketing guru Seth Godin: Godin has pledged never again to publish books via traditional publishers. Godin said, in part: I like the people, but I can't abide the long wait, the filters, the big push at launch, the nudging to get people to go to a store they don't usually visit to buy something they don't usually buy, to get them to pay for an idea in a form that's hard to spread Godin is no stranger to direct-to-consumer e-publishing. In 2001, he...

Every week it seems something new is happening in eBookland to set the ebook cause back a decade or two. Always at the forefront of the reversal of fortune is greed. This week’s menace to eBookland is literary agent Andrew Wylie and his new publishing venture Odyssey. Wylie could have summed up his actions in simple terms: to disserve both his clients and the ebook-buying public. What, you ask, did he do? He agreed to give Amazon exclusive rights for 2 years to his authors’ backlist titles; Wylie will publish the books and exclusively sell them through Amazon. The backlist includes...

For an author to “build a community” with his readers has become a popular catch phrase in recent times. In particular, Richard Nash has talked at length about how community-based publishing is the main purpose of his new venture, Cursor. When you have a close relationship with your readers, the thinking goes, they are much more likely to buy your stuff. However, community-building can have a darker side as well, as this March editorial by Guy Gavriel Kay, one of my favorite authors, reveals. Kay talks about how some authors, such as George R.R. Martin and Patrick...