Apparently not content to disrupt the television business, Barry Diller is up to yet another new project. The New York Times reports that Mr. Diller is partnering with producer Scott Rubin and publishing vet Frances Coady to launch Brightline, a new venture–in the publishing business.
So more more like an adventure, really. Read More
When Amazon flipped the switch on its Serials program last Thursday, it also served as the debut of a new startup: Plympton, founded by journalist Jennifer 8 Lee and novelist Yael Goldstein Love. The company is contributing three of the eight titles inaugurating the initiative: The Many Lives of Lilith Lane, a paranormal YA mystery; Hacker Mom, dubbed a “mom thriller”; and Love Is Strong as Death, a mystery.
Plympton’s founders describe the company as a “literary studio,” functioning a little like a publishing house and a little like a movie studio. Their mission? Nothing less than using new technology to reinvigorate a storytelling form that publishing left for dead decades ago. (Naturally, there’s a Kickstarter campaign.)
“What we care about is actually just bringing back this format, because we do think it would be good for literature,” Ms. Love told Betabeat. “It’s good for writers, it’s good for readers, it’s good for the state of American literature.” Read More
Good news for cheapskates, bad news for traditional publishing: “Agency pricing,” which many in the book business had hoped would prove a defense against Amazon’s discounting every new book to $9.99, is pretty much finito as of today.
A bit of background: At issue is the agency model, which first came into play when Apple debuted the iPad and began talking to publishers about ebooks. Apple liked the sound of an agency model, where publishers would set the price and and Apple would merely act as agent, taking a cut of the transaction. This looked like a way of finally breaking Amazon’s iron-fisted insistence on charging $9.99 for a standard new release, which would otherwise go for $25.00 in print. Read More
Were you watching closely during Amazon’s Kindle press conference? Because if you were, you just saw Jeff Bezos make one of those centuries-long bets his friends are always talking about. Behold, the literary equivalent of the Clock of the Long Now–a bet on a future where ereaders are about as out-of-the-ordinary as a tea kettle or a wristwatch.
There were several interesting details in the publishing portion of the announcements. The good, old-fashioned Kindle ereader got several updates, including a paperwhite background, more fonts, and a backlight that’ll go eight weeks without a charge. All that’ll now set you back a mere $69. The company’s publishing arm also debuted a brand new form, between the single and the full-length book: Kindle Serials, at $1.99 a pop and seamlessly, automatically updated with each new installment.
Charles Dickens would be so proud. (He’d also probably write a great serialized novel about people who work in Amazon fulfillment centers.) Read More
Singularity & Co. is a new brick-and-mortar Brooklyn bookshop, devoted to science fiction and fantasy. But the team isn’t merely moving dusty dead-tree hardcovers and hosting IRL events. Rather, as Ars Technica reports, they’re using modern publishing methods to save Golden Age classics from death by neglect.
Early genre titles weren’t exactly printed to last through time immemorial–hence the term pulp fiction. The store’s website cheekily identifies the outfit as “team of time traveling archivists longing for futures past.” The members of that team: former Gawker media community manager Kaila Hale-Stern, lawyer Ash Kalb, musician-anthropologist Cici James, and stylist-writer Jamil V. Moen.
‘Fess up, guys. Who’s the Hulk and/or Thing-like enforcer?
Here’s the team’s actual job description (sadly, there’s no actual time machine involved–that we can confirm): Read More
The numbers are in for Barnes and Noble’s most recent quarter, and matters could definitely be better. Let’s put it this way: When a company’s bottom line is bouyed by the runaway popularity of a raunchy romance–rather than by sales of the devices to which it’s devoted a ludicrous amount of in-store floor space–it’s probably not a particularly encouraging sign.
It’s got to be especially discouraging, however, for Microsoft. Back in April, the company agreed to invest $300 million in “NEWCO,” the subsidiary Barnes and Noble is creating from its Nook and college businesses. We can’t imagine the staid software company entered into the agreement in hopes of receiving a BDSM boost to its bottom line.
Here’s the spin that Barnes and Noble CEO William Lynch put on the company’s earnings, chirping away about the 50 Shades frenzy: Read More
Three romance novelists have filed a class action lawsuit in the Southern District of New York against juggernaut Harlequin Enterprises, alleging that the publisher is not coughing up the ebook royalties they were promised.
Broken Promises–now that sounds like something that would catch our eye while browsing the bookshelves.
First, a bit of context: Harlequin Enterprises is the world’s largest publisher of romance novels. In the U.S. alone, that’s a billion-dollar market. As the suit points out, the company churns out books for 114 international markets, in 34 languages, to the tune of more than 100 books a month.
Second (and this is why Betabeat gives a damn), Harlequin has embraced digital formats in a big way, going all the way back to the pre-Kindle Dark Ages. And in 2010, the company even launched Carina Press, its own digital-only subsidiary. Carina, it should be noted, eschews the traditional advance model and promises higher royalties. (None of the books at issue were published by Carina, however.) Read More
It’s a common refrain (one that’ll be especially familiar to, let’s say, romance fans): Hey, isn’t it great that, once you get a Kindle/Nook/iPad, no one can see what you’re reading? Now we’re forever free from those awkward subway moments when we pull out our trashy novel and realize it’s a little too lurid for the L train on a Saturday night.
Well, a bit of bad news for the bookish and private. The Wall Street Journal would like you to know that whoever sold you that ebook–whether it’s Amazon, Apple, or whoever–actually is paying attention to what you read. For one thing, maybe be careful what you highlight? Read More
Yesterday Barnes & Noble announced a splashy Microsoft partnership, complete with major cash infusion. Today, Fortune has a Q&A with CEO William Lynch, speculating on how the bookseller can leverage NFC technologies. Whatever its eventual fate, this company seems damned determined that if there’s an obituary involved, it will not read like those of Borders. Read More
