The shape-shifting factor in publishing: Subscriptions With almost the timing that Amazon Prime promises its members, the Book Industry Study Group (BISG) has arrived to deepen the debate about subscriptions and their potential in publishing. Only days after Seattle launched its Kindle Unlimited subscription program — quickly pulling up alongside Oyster and Scribd (pronounced “Scribbed”)… Read More
#FutureChat recap: How can we ease the summer's debate?
To ease the summer’s publishing debates, just hold a #FutureChat, and the biting and bickering become a spirited but friendly exchange of views and counter-views. One of the things many of us appreciate more each week is how responsibly our FutureBook community moves from issue to issue. Newcomers are welcomed and seem to understand immediately that we… Read More
BitLit announces HarperCollins ebook bundling pilot programme
In a potentially major gain for the ebook-bundling concept, BitLit today is announcing its first deal with a Big Five publisher. HarperCollins (US) has entered what is being described as a pilot programme with the Vancouver-based BitLit to offer discounted ebook editions of print books that readers already own. “This is not, obviously, HarperCollins’ full… Read More
#FutureChat: How can we ease the summer's debate?
Just in time for those reports that Big Five publisher Simon & Shuster (S&S) is, like Hachette, in negotiations with Amazon, as covered here by Sarah Shaffi at The Bookseller. As Greg Bensinger and Shira Ovide at the Wall Street Journal quoted Les Moonves, CEO of CBS, which owns S&S, “It’s going to be a very interesting thing to watch.” That… Read More
#FutureChat recap: How can we pay authors what they deserve?
Author and gaming-business consultant Nicholas Lovell jumped in with both Twitter accounts for our #FutureChat session on author income, and was joined by many others in a free-wheeling exchange of thoughts. The spur, of course, was the release of the Authors’ Licensing & Collection Society (ACLS), What Are Words Worth Now? While we need to hear more from ACLS… Read More
#FutureChat: How can we pay authors what they deserve?
Each Friday, join us for a #FutureChat session, live on Twitter, at 4 p.m. London time, 11 a.m. New York time, 8 a.m. Los Angeles, 5 p.m. Berlin, 3 p.m. GMT. As Philip Jones writes in his leader piece, Author yearnings, in The Bookseller today, “That authors are paid too little and that their situation has worsened is indisputable.” Note… Read More
UK author income survey: Another publishing bombshell
The topic of our Friday #FutureChat this week, 11 July, will be the ALCS survey news. Join us live on Twitter at 4 p.m. London time, 11 a.m. New York time, 8 a.m. Los Angeles, 5 p.m. Berlin, 3 p.m. GMT. Brace for impact The key survey revelations commissioned by the UK’s Authors’ Licensing & Collection… Read More
#FutureChat recap: Authors in the hot zone
Each Friday, join us for a #FutureChat session, live on Twitter, at 4 p.m. London time, 11 a.m. New York time, 8 a.m. Los Angeles, 5 p.m. Berlin, 3 p.m. GMT. Still crazy from the heat For all the posts, counter-posts, comments, counter-comments, and general online debate generated by the authors’ “dueling open letters,” as some… Read More
#FutureChat: Authors in the hot zone
Each Friday, join us for a #FutureChat session, live on Twitter, at 4 p.m. London time, 11 a.m. New York time, 8 a.m. Los Angeles, 5 p.m. Berlin, 3 p.m. GMT. Crazy from the heat Disagreements that might cause minor annoyance on a cool day have a way of escalating when the mercury rises. Most riots… Read More
The NYPL Amazon panel: Views and reviews
“Concentration of power” “The theme of this is really concentration of power and when do we start getting worried?” It was WME literary agent Tina Bennett who suggested to LIVE From the NYPL’s curator Paul Holdengräber that the program have an evening’s conversation titled “Amazon: Business as Usual?” on the New York Public Library’s (NYPL) series. And… Read More