Entries Tagged 'Uncategorized' ↓

MinnPost has an article on changes in the publishing industry towards conserving paper resources and other green practices.

Read it at the MinnPost site.

As reported by Mashable, Microsoft is getting rid of its Live Search Books and Live Search Academic projects. The company will be “reaching out to participating publishers and libraries. We are encouraging libraries to build on the platform we developed with Kirtas, the Internet Archive, CCS, and others to create digital archives available to library users and search engines.”

Google Book Search will press on, however. Microsoft’s departure from the field leaves Google as one of the sole major players in the task of digitizing published material.

Elizabeth Day of The Guardian recently did a great interview with Christina Crawford, author of Mommie Dearest and adopted daughter of Joan Crawford. It’s Christina’s first interview in over a decade.

Mommie Dearest, published in 1978, was the first real tell-all celebrity memoir and was on New York Times bestseller list for 42 weeks. For the book’s 30 year anniversary, Christina is reissuing the book with a new introduction and a new afterword, as well as 100 pages and photos cut from the original edition.

Since her child abuse claims have been oft disputed throughout the years — even by her two sisters — the new version also has supporting commentary from people who knew the family.

You can read the full interview at The Guardian’s website.

With print on demand (POD), books are not published until a customer actually makes the purchase. Among its advantages are cost savings for the publisher and less waste and environmental damage.

Amazon.com recently decided to only sell POD titles that are printed using its subsidiary, BookSurge.

BookLocker.com, a POD publishing business based in Maine, is suing Amazon over this decision, based on antitrust laws. “Amazon.com has a tremendous amount of market power in the online sale of books,” said Seth Klein, BookLocker’s attorney. “They are improperly trying to leverage that power to dominate the POD market.” BookLocker’s owner, Angela Hoy, says that about half of her sales are through Amazon.

Hoy’s lawsuit seeks class action status for the roughly 4300 potential class action members, an injunction to prevent Amazon’s from implementing the POD changes, and monetary damages.

To read more on this story, check out The Seattle Times, or the Bangor Daily News, which is located in Hoy’s hometown. You can also view a PDF of the complaint at BookLocker’s site.

I’m sure by now that you know that Barbara Walters has just published a memoir, entitled Audition. I mean, even if you didn’t want to know, you probably know. It’s one of those rare books that is just riding a huge publicity storm.With Walters’ name attached, the book was sure to get quite a buzz on its own. It doesn’t sit too well with me that her publicity team appears to be trotting out her 30+-years-old affair with a married Senator, especially since that man is still alive.

They were both in the wrong, but why hang out someone else’s dirty laundry to promote your book? It’s bad enough to even publish it in the memoir. According to the Louisville Courier-Journal, Edward Brooke isn’t giving comments.

Apparently, I am not the only one who thinks her actions are gross and entirely classless.

Cathy Lanier, Police Chief in Washington, D.C., has started a book club of sorts in an attempt to lower crime rates in the nation’s capital. She made Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point required reading for her commanders, and held a community book club meeting on May 1 to discuss it.Read more about it at Bloomberg.com.

The Los Angeles Times reported recently on a round of scam attempts hitting bookstores. Con artists are calling bookstores, pretending to be touring authors, and trying to elicit money from the store owners. They invent situations like, “Oh, my car is impounded and I need you to send me money to get it out so I can make it to my scheduled appearance at your store.”

Who comes up with these ideas?? Plus, it doesn’t seem like there’d be a whole heck of a lot of money in it.