Scott Timberg has the customary 'look back at 2007 piece in the Los Angeles Times. The tag line is "Publishing has become a high-stakes game amid store closings, declines in sales, profits, book review sections -- even literacy.""The delivery of the content of a book in different forms and formats is making people nervous...So we're trying to publish in a lot of different formats because we don't know where the readers are going to be. A lot of us in the publishing industry started out when we still used carbon paper and manual typewriters.""The uncertainty around technological change is responsible...
Author wins Nestlé Children’s Book Prize. Refuses to accept the check
Author Sean Taylor won the 2007 Nestlé Children's Book Prize for When A Monster is Born.Taylor accepted the award but refused to accept the £2,500 cash prize due to "questions surrounding Nestlé’s marketing of breast-milk substitutes."Taylor consulted with campaign group Baby Milk Action(who urge you to boycott Nestle who they say are "responsible for more violations of the World Health Assembly marketing requirements for baby foods than any other company," Nestlé and "an authoritative third party with experience in the field," before making his decision to turn down the prize money. Taylor goes on to say that while "many of...
Death of a Bookstore Trailer
Video trailers are becoming part of the standard marketing plan for many publishers but this is the first time I have seen one created for a bookshop that's closing its doors!To promote their going out of business sale Loome Antiquarian Booksellers in Stillwater, Minnesota has created this trailer featuring vignettes of books acting "out their favorite literary death scenes."The background music is a bit devilish and there is a little too much book violence for my taste but it is a pretty clever piece. Watching it a couple times I couldn't help but think that it seemed too happy, too...
Amazon is the "secret buyer" of J.K. Rowlings "The Tales of Beedle and the Bard"
Amazon.com paid a record £1,950,000 at Sotheby's yesterday for one of the seven copies in existence of J.K. Rowling's hand-written and illustrated book of fairy-tales "The Tales of Beedle and the Bard."The Times of London originally reported that the "An anonymous collector, bidding through a dealer who usually specialises in Old Masters" was the high bidder. How that ends up being Amazon is a story of for another day.Amazon boasts that the purchase was a simple thank you to Rowling who recently concluded the record-breaking Harry Potter series. The series was a publishing hi-spot and Amazon sold millions upon millions...
The E-Reader Design Invitational
The folks at the industrial design site Core77 asked its users to submit design prototypes for e-readers.The challenge:"Love it or hate it, Amazon’s Kindle Reader has people talking about digital reading devices. No matter what side of the fence you are on, here’s your chance to show the world your vision of the perfect Digital eBook. We want you to take an hour out of your day to design the perfect Digital eBook."The results are pretty impressive. Here two examples of the over 50 entries received. The winner will receive a $125 NIKE gift certificate. I suspect the opportunities for...