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Weekend Roundup: Lawsuits, Google Glass, Author Appearances and more

Dan Eldridge — Sat, 18 May 2013 12:10:12 +0000

India’s OMICS Publishing Group threatens scholarly critic with $1 billion lawsuit, jail time (Boing Boing) OMICS Publishing Group, an Indian scholarly publisher has threatened to sue one of its critics, Metadata librarian Jeffrey Beall, for $1 billion, and has threatened him with prison time over posts he made to his prominent Scholarly Open Access site. Changes at [...]

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How Popular Are Amazon’s Kindle Singles?

Aggregated Content — Fri, 03 May 2013 16:05:21 +0000

By Moe Zilla The New York Times ran a fascinating profile of David Blum, the editor of Amazon’s “Kindle Singles” store. But along the way, they also took a look at the whole phenomenon of Singles—and what it means for the future of books. Amazon has sold nearly 5 million Kindle singles over the last 27 months, according to the [...]

Former Amazon Employee Speaks Out!

Joanna Cabot — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 20:58:57 +0000

The New York Times has a fascinating preview up of a forthcoming tell-all from Jason Merkoski, formerly of Amazon and one of the developers of the first Kindle. Merkoski has a lot to say about both the benefits (a complete library; accessible using your phone) and drawbacks (sadness for paper fetishists) of the revolution he helped to [...]

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Looking Back at History’s First Draft: Notes on the permanence of print

Jim Sturdivant — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 16:10:01 +0000

My mom is a pack rat, which as everyone knows can be frustrating for friends and family trying to help bring order to accumulation. The upside of pack rattery is there are always gems scattered among the detritus of domesticity, and so it was last week, when I discovered at her house a box full [...]

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Looking for a Simon & Schuster title? Barnes & Noble might not be your best bet.

Aggregated Content — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 01:49:04 +0000

Book retailer Barnes & Noble has reportedly reduced the amount of titles it stocks by Simon & Schuster authors and lowered the number of S&S books on display as it continues to be embroiled in a debate with the publisher. Neither the chain nor Simon & Schuster would specify exactly what is being negotiated, but [...]

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The digital resale controversy, in the New York Times

Dan Eldridge — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 19:34:13 +0000

The New York Times ran an interesting and fairly informative feature story on March 7; it covers the digital publishing industry’s current digital resale controversy, which was sparked largely by the work of John Ossenmacher, the founder and CEO of ReDigi — a company that refers to itself as ‘The World’s First Pre-Owned Digital Marketplace.’ The story [...]

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Mexico’s illiteracy problem is growing worse

Dan Eldridge — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 20:48:47 +0000

For years now, whenever reports from Mexico have popped up in American news outlets, the stories have almost always revolved around the seemingly endless homicides that are taking place in the northern reaches of the country, where many of Mexico’s infamous drug cartels are based. But an op-ed about one aspect of the Mexican cultural [...]

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What was the first book ever written with a word processor?

Dan Eldridge — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 21:14:33 +0000

I’ve always been a sucker for stories about the history of American pop culture. So when TeleRead founder David Rothman sent me an email last weekend with a subject line that read, “This Was the First Word Processor Ever Used By a Novelist. It Weighed 200 Pounds and Had to Be Brought in Though the [...]

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Amazon Reviews and The Wisdom of the Mob

Aggregated Content — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 20:33:42 +0000

By Brian Howard It’s official. The old trope “There’s no such thing as bad press” can be retired. For good. Witness the campaign against Randall Sullivan’s Michael Jackson bio Untouchable: The Strange Life and Tragic Death of Michael Jackson. As reported in The New York Times, Sullivan’s book focuses on the superstar’s last years and, despite being characterized as [...]

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TeleRead Asks: Why is Barnes & Noble Losing?

Dan Eldridge — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 20:18:32 +0000

To most readers, it probably seems unthinkable that Barnes & Noble and its Nook Media division might not be around at this time next year. But after B&N announced its embarrassingly low holiday season sales figures yesterday (scroll down to read the press release), that’s essentially what every media outlet covering the news seemed to [...]

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Does Apple Own the Digital Page Turn or Doesn’t It?

Aggregated Content — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 00:05:03 +0000

By Brian Howard | for Book Business On Friday afternoon, The New York Times‘ Nick Bilton posted an item on the paper’s Bits blog entitled “Apple Now Owns The Page Turn,” citing U.S. Patent D670,713. Incredulous, Bilton wrote: This design patent, titled, “Display screen or portion thereof with animated graphical user interface,” gives Apple the exclusive rights to the [...]

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E-Books Expand Their Potential With Serialized Fiction

a TeleRead Contributor — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 18:12:51 +0000

Could serialized fiction finally force the e-book to evolve? Various ventures are trying to satisfy a common complaint about e-books: that they are simply black-and-white digital reproductions of long-form print books, flat and unoriginal in their design and concept. One variation, what publishers call enhanced e-books, with audio and video elements woven throughout the text, [...]

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Tantor Media Launches New Print & E-Books Division

a TeleRead Contributor — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 03:40:12 +0000

PRESS RELEASE Tantor Media, one of the largest independent audiobook publishers in the nation, is venturing into the realm of print and e-books. The 12-year-old Connecticut-based publisher—after releasing over 2,700 audiobooks—is launching its new print line this fall with a combination of fiction and nonfiction. Tantor will serve consumers and authors by publishing in all [...]

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Four Smashwords authors make the New York Times Bestseller List

Dan Eldridge — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 04:49:39 +0000

“We knew this day was coming,” writes Smashwords founder Mark Coker, on his company’s blog. ”Self-published ebook authors are landing on the New York Times bestseller list in a big way.” As for myself, I cancelled my subscription to the Sunday Times ages ago (too expensive; impossible to read in one week), so I probably won’t [...]

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