While pioneering trade publishers were not exactly in evidence among the crowd at the Digital Rights Management & Digital Distribution conference in New York on February 23-24, John Wiley’s Gregory St. John offered a glimpse into that rare publishing phenomenon known as the New Business Model. Besides offering a gloss on new-economy jargon (“opportunities” are…Continue Reading
Can Textbook E-Tailers Topple Bookselling’s Ivory Tower? Like many Internet business ventures, online textbook retailing undoubtedly seemed like a good idea at the time. An obscenely plump $5 billion industry just begging to be undersold. More than 5 million full-time undergrads and 10 million other higher education students with annual discretionary spending power of a…Continue Reading
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Tagged Adam Lashinsky, Amazon, AOL, B&N, B&N.com, Baker & Taylor, BigWords.com, book.com, books.com, Bruce Tulgan, cin, CollegeClub.com, Dave Thomas, eCampus.com, eFollett, Eric Weil, ICQ, Mathieu Deflem, Missouri Book Services, MTV, NACS, Norton, ProfessorJones.com, RainmakerThinking, Student Monitor, StudentAdvantage.com, Textbooks.com, TheStreet, Tim Dorgan, Valerie Valente, VarsityBooks.com, Wallace's, Wendy's
Nouveaux Romans Gavalda Awes France, Spielberg Grabs Levy, and Sijie Pays Dues to Balzac While most of the English-speaking world tried to figure out what to do with its heaping Star Wars inventory this month, the international lists — particularly the French — were galvanized by first-time authors who’ve put critics in a tizzy and…Continue Reading
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Tagged Agenciz BMSR, Agneta Markas, And If It Were True?, Anna Gavalda, Anne-Solange, Balzac, Balzac & the Little Chinese Tailoress, Bernard Pivot, Brazilian Summer Stories, Buccaneer Books, Carl Hanser, Claude Terrene, Dai Sijie, Dinah Silveira de Queiroz, Douglas Coupland, Emmanuela Canali, Frans G. Bengtsson, Galago, Gallimard, Globo Television, I'd Like Someone to Wait for Me Somewhere, La Dilettante, Laffont, Lucia Riff, Luis Fernando Verissimo, Marc Levy, Mondadori, National Festival of Saint-Quentin, Noble, Norstedts, Orm Tostesson, Penguin, Per Olov Enquist, Pocket, Prix de Flore, Prix RTL-Lire, Record, Richard Widmark, Rolf Classon, Sergio Machado, Star Wars, Steven Spielberg, The Angel's Club, The Doctor's Visit, The Love Book, The Love Hexagon, William Sutcliffe
The Digital Rights Management & Digital Distribution for Publishing conference in New York on February 23–24 was something of a set piece ripped straight out of an early Ionesco script, with non sequitur following hard on the heels of non sequitur. Digital rights vendors continued to perform feats of creative visualization (“This is going to…Continue Reading
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Tagged Authors Guild, B&N, BISG, Books24x7.com, Edward Ruehle, Harvard Business School Publishing, HP Laboratories, John Erickson, Ken Brooks, Martin Eberhard, Nuvomedia, Paul Aiken, Rocket eBook, Sandy Paul, Sears, Yankee Rights Management
When the AAP unfurled its new ONIX guidelines at New York’s McGraw-Hill Auditorium on January 19, you couldn’t fault certain woozy invitees from thinking they’d wandered into a euphoric episode of Oprah. Before their very eyes, R.R. Bowker lay down with Baker & Taylor, Barnesandnoble.com clasped hands with Amazon, Ingram and Vista tearfully embraced, while…Continue Reading
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Tagged AAP, Amazon, AOL Time Warner, Baker & Taylor, BarnesandNoble.com, Carol Risher, Holtzbrinck, Ingram, McGraw-Hill, Pat Schroeder, Pearson, Quality Solutions, R.R. Bowker, Vista, Wiley
Apocalypse Now Amnesia Hits Spain, Horror Bloodies France, and Pokémon Ravages Australia Perhaps in compensation for the underwhelming arrival of Y2K, this month’s bestsellers have registered a potent desire for all those missed connections, fatal errors, and world-historical upheavals we were so tantalizingly promised. In Spain, Nativel Preciado’s The Narcissist plunges into the abyss of…Continue Reading
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Tagged Arundhati Roy, Bertrand Brazil, Camilo Jose Cela, Carlos Gorostiza, Carmen Balcells, Doubleday, Doves Fly Away, Editorial Noticias, Emmanuel Carrere, Frozen Peaches, Giogio Forattini, Goncourt, Grasset, HarperCollins India, Hodder & Stoughton, Indro Montanelli, Knopf, Laura Espido Freire, Linda Michaels, List, Lulu Wang, Madera de Boj, Mal og Menning, Massimo D'Alema, Mel Cox, Millennium Flop, Nativel Preciado, Nobel Prize, Nonino Prize, Pankaj Mishra, Picador India, Picador UK, Planeta, Planeta Argentina, Planeta Group, Pokemon, Scholastic Australia, The Adversary, The God of Small Things, The Lily Theatre, The Narcissist, The Romantics, The Tender Child
Although a record number of exhibitors and booksellers were registered for the CBA Expo over the week of January 24 at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville, many attendees apparently were caught without their snowmobiles, leaving attendance somewhat sparser than had been expected. Nevertheless, the general consensus indicated that business was booming. Several publishers reported a…Continue Reading
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Tagged Andersen Consulting, CBA Expo, Dave Moberg, Doubleday/Waterbrook, Family Christian Stores, Garborg's, Harold Shaw Publishers, iBelieve.com, Jef Fite, Larry Stone, Lee Gessner, Rutledge Hill, Thomas Nelson, Word Publishing
A Peek Into the Military-Biblio Complex The Carlyle Group has invested in a German maker of car ignition systems, owns the manufacturer of the Bradley M2A3 Infantry Fighting Vehicle, and bought a company that specializes in ion exchange technologies for treating radioactive waste. It boasts former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci as chairman and counts former…Continue Reading
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Tagged Amazon, AOL, Baker & Taylor, Blackboard, Carlyle Group, Entertainment Publications, Figaro Group, Frank Carlucci, ICQ, James A. Baker III, LatinForce.Net, MuniAuction, National Association of College Stores, Philip Dolan, Tribune Company, VarsityBooks.com
Let there be no mistake about the 25th annual Calcutta International Book Fair. As host Subrata Datta Gupta informed the press prior to the show, though the fair paid special tribute to Brazilian literature and culture this year, “books from other Latin American countries would also be on sale showing that these countries have more…Continue Reading
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Tagged Amazon, Benjamin Zephaniah, BOL, Calcutta International Book Fair, Cambridge University Press, Chintamoni Kar, Dr. Candido Mendes de Almeida, Gunter Grass, Jeremy P. Tarcher, K.S. Padmanabhan, Karachi, Oxford University Press, Random House, Rediff.com, Subrata Datta Gupta
