Random House Retains Digital Rights Over Wylie Agency

On 26 July 2010, I posted about the esteemed Wylie Literary Agency getting into the publishing field by publishing the digital versions of old classics by their own writer clientele through Amazon.

You see, the old, original publishing contracts with Random House (and a few others) did not include "digital rights"...They didn't exist at the time.

It now seems that Random House, who published most of the original print versions of the subject Wylie titles, has wrestled the digital rights from Wylie.

Even though I previously commented on a concern over a Wylie Agency conflict of interest with their authors, I would still like to see the wording of those original Random House contracts...that evidently held up rights that didn't exist at the time. Rights I believe belong to the writers/authors to assign as they wish.

What do you think?

Anyway, here is a Wall Street Journal report written by Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg giving more details.

Best-selling Author Dumps Traditional Publishers

The publishing and book world is ABUZZZZZ with the news that Seth Godin, a top selling marketing author, is dumping his traditional publisher because they take too long to get his product to his readers AND he has developed a close enough relationship with his readers, through his online blog, that he feels he can sell directly to them and dispense with the laborious publishers.

Phew! That was a long and laborious sentence, I'm out of breadth...It says a lot though:

First, it points out the importance of blogs to establish an author's online platform and relationships.

Second, life is too short to waste it jumping through the traditional publishing hoops.

Third, the internet can tell you just who your readers are (and provide better tracking).

This from Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg of the Wall Street Journal:

In a significant defection for the book industry, best-selling marketing author Seth Godin is ditching his traditional publisher, Portfolio, after a string of books and plans to sell his future works directly to his fans.

The author of about a dozen books including "Purple Cow" said he now has so many direct customer relationships, largely via his blog, that he no longer needs a traditional publisher. Mr. Godin plans to release subsequent titles himself in electronic books, via print-on-demand or in such formats as audiobooks, apps, small digital files called PDFs and podcasts.

"Publishers provide a huge resource to authors who don't know who reads their books," said Mr. Godin in an interview. "What the Internet has done for me, and a lot of others, is enable me to know my readers."

It's unclear how many, if any, best-selling authors will follow Mr. Godin's lead. However, his departure from Portfolio, an imprint owned by Pearson PLC's Penguin Group (USA), comes at a critical juncture for the industry. With many new titles spending less time on best-seller lists and in bookstores, publishers are increasingly dependent on brand-name authors such as Mr. Godin to deliver significant book sales.

Read more http://alturl.com/keqy6

liquidpubs, a New Digital Publisher for Mobiles

Liquidpubs is the name of a new, so-called "next generation" digital publisher.

What exactly does that mean? As far as I can determine...I think it means a digital publisher that publishes for the new mobile devices in their particular formats (specifically smartphones and tablet computers).

Just how many digital publishers are there? Don't know, but there is a ton of members to the IDPF (The International Digital Publishing Forum), an international trade and standards association for the digital publishing industry.

Robin Wauters, writing for TechCrunch, gives more details:

There’s a new “next generation” digital publishing solutions provider in town, and its name is liquidpubs. Offering tools and services for publishing for smartphones and tablet computers, specifically, the startup aims to cater to publishers of magazines, newspapers and books wanting to get their content onto devices like the iPad and iPhone.

Of note: one of the company’s creative directors is Rob Janoff, a graphic designer probably most famous for his creation of the Apple logo (the rainbow bitten apple one, not the early Isaac Newton one) and his later design work for the likes of IBM and Intel.

The other creative director is renowned photographer and image artist Alexx Henry, but let’s not digress too much.

Liquidpubs is essentially a set of services and technologies that allows publishers of magazines, newspapers and books to offer owners of the iPad, an iPhone or an Android based tablet or smartphone an experience of their content specifically made for said devices.

Read more http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/23/liquidpubs/

Are E-Readers More Sociable than Books?

A different take on the impact of e-readers. Some are saying that when one is seen reading an e-reader they seem more approachable and less "bookwormish" and isolated than when one is seen reading a printed book.

I'm not so sure if I buy into this concept totally because I never considered a person reading a book as unapproachable in the first place...Probably has more to do with personalities and backgrounds than anything else. For sure, the popularity of e-readers has made reading anywhere more common and accepted and therefore less "isolated".

Austin Considine had this to say in the New York Times today:

E-Books Make Readers Less Isolated

VOLUMES have been written about technology’s ability to connect people. But burying one’s nose in a book has always been somewhat isolating — with its unspoken assertion that the reader does not want to be disturbed. So what about a device that occupies the evolving intersection between?

“Strangers constantly ask about it,” Michael Hughes, a communications associate at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, said of his iPad, which he uses to read a mix of novels and nonfiction. “It’s almost like having a new baby.” An iPad owner for four months, Mr. Hughes said people were much more likely to approach him now than when he toted a book. “People approach me and ask to see it, to touch it, how much I like it,” he said. “That rarely happens with dead-tree books.”

With the price of e-readers coming down, sales of the flyweight devices are rising. Last month, Amazon reported that so far this year, Kindle sales had tripled over last year’s. When Amazon cut Kindle’s price in June to $189 from $259, over the next month Amazon sold 180 e-books for every 100 hardcovers.

Read more http://alturl.com/v2wvw

Publisher 'Inkling' Leading in Interactive Content Publishing

Inkling has evidently developed an interactive content publishing platform that will be useful to many applications outside it's own educational, textbook mission...and is raising series A funding for further development.

Seems only fitting that an educational publisher, that deals with teaching in an interactive environment, would be the innovator of such a platform in the new digital publishing world.

Here are more details in a press release from Business Wire :

Inkling(tm) announced its Series A financing today, led by Sequoia Capital with participation from Kapor Capital, Sherpalo Ventures and Felicis Ventures. Inkling delivers engaging interactive textbooks that feature powerful social collaboration, integrated multimedia, and instant learner feedback. Inkling also launched its platform for advanced learning content today with the immediate availability of its iPad app.

Inkling Founder and CEO Matt MacInnis announced that the company has added Peter Currie, Former CFO of Netscape, and Bryan Schreier, Partner, Sequoia Capital, to its board.

The publishing industry is undergoing a fundamental transformation as devices like iPad enable new interactive digital experiences. Getting content onto these devices is expensive, and best practices aren't yet established. Educational content in particular presents special challenges because of its visual and informational complexity. Inkling provides a scalable platform for creating complex interactive experiences for multiple platforms, starting first with iPad.

"We're going to change the way people learn," said Mr. MacInnis. "And our object-oriented publishing platform positions us to accelerate change in the publishing industry, benefitting publishers, students, and educators alike."

"Inkling has produced a groundbreaking platform for interactive content publishing in a market that's primed for innovation," said Mr. Schreier. "With its visionary product strategy and phenomenal team, Inkling is leading the way for digital content platforms, not just in education, but in digital publishing everywhere. We're excited to be a part of it."

Inkling was founded in late 2009 to tackle the challenges of interactive publishing. Inkling's partnerships with major publishers like Cengage Learning, John Wiley & Sons, McGraw-Hill, and Wolters Kluwer will yield next-generation interactive titles that replace traditional textbooks and other printed learning materials.

Contacts:
Inkling
Lauren E. Struck, 415-975-4423
lauren@inkling.com

What are Shelter Magazines? And Which are Surviving?

Just what are shelter magazines? According to Wikipedia.com 'shelter magazine' is a publishing trade term used to indicate a segment of the U.S. magazine market, designating a periodical publication with an editorial focus on interior design, architecture, home furnishings, and often gardening.

Some examples of shelter mags:

Architectural Digest
Better Homes and Gardens
Country Life in America, 1901-1942.
Country Living
Dwell (magazine)
Desert Magazine
Elle Decor
Garden Design
House Beautiful
Martha Stewart Living
Metropolitan Home

Having established what a shelter mag is and given examples of a few, which ones are surviving in the present chaotic publishing landscape where so many mags have been mowed over like dead weeds?

Jason Fell of FOLIO magazine has the answer with numbers to illustrate (interesting stuff) in the following article:

Over the last several weeks, the editorial leaders at the industry’s top shelter magazines have been playing a game of musical chairs, much like the executives at the big publishing companies that own them. The most recent move came at Condé Nast’s Architectural Digest, where longtime editor Paige Rense Noland retired and was replaced by Margaret Russell, the editor-in-chief of Hachette’s Elle Décor. Michael Boodro, Elle Décor’s executive editor, is serving as acting editor-in-chief.

Elsewhere, Stephen Drucker, who had served as editor-in-chief of Hearst’s House Beautiful, jumped to sister title Town&Country, and was replaced by style director Newell Turner. Hearst’s Veranda named Dara Caponigro, style director at now-defunct Domino, as editor, replacing founding editor Lisa Newsom. And Time Inc.’s Southern Living recently appointed former Cottage Living editor Eleanor Griffin as vice president of brand development.

“These changes mean there’s a ‘wanted-ness’ in the shelter category, both in terms of readership and those who want to work in this category,” says House Beautiful publisher Kate Kelly Smith. “From a business perspective, it may be a challenge to some titles because some advertisers like consistency and any changes mean their brands may not resonate as well.”

In terms of business, now that the big shelter magazine die-off—spurred on by the housing market collapse and pullback in advertising dollars across the publishing industry—appears to have slowed if not stopped altogether, the forecast for the remaining titles seems to be that while the category overall is rebounding, the general market is still lagging. “Some aspects of the category are showing modest rebounding, but more mass-targeted brands are coming back slowly,” says Chris Allen, publisher of Hearst’s Country Living, which targets the shelter lifestyle market.

Meredith’s category monster, Better Homes & Gardens (7.6 million circ) saw ad pages through the first half grow 6.8 percent to 823.92, according to Publishers Information Bureau figures. Percentage-wise, Elle Décor had the best first six months, with ad pages shooting up 15.6 percent to 474.16.

Read more http://alturl.com/6rrg2

Little, Brown Publishing Pushing Newbie Writer!

Going back to basics, including what I consider publishing's core mission: discovering and marketing new writers, is smart and a welcome breath of fresh air!

Little, Brown publishing company, was founded in 1837 and became a constituent of Hachette Book Group in 2006...

Little, Brown Company has QUITE an interesting history so please visit the link I provided.

Rachel Deahl of Publishers Weekly describes this newbie writer and his book/s and why Little, Brown is big-budgeting this new writer:

A "great old-fashioned publishing job" is how Michael Pietsch described the campaign Little, Brown has launched for the author it's trying to turn into its latest franchise bestseller: Michael Koryta. Amid the growing cacophony of claims that authors don't really need publishers anymore—this was the general media's takeaway from the news that the Andrew Wylie Agency launched a publishing division—Little, Brown's major investment in a relative unknown (who isn't writing a YA trilogy) stands as an important reminder that there are still publishers who think they can make money by investing in an author that they simply believe can write.

Koryta (pronounced Kor-ee-ta) was a young (he's 27) genre thriller writer at St. Martin's Press until, in a case of serendipity, his editor there turned down a manuscript of his that veered into the supernatural. His agent, David Hale Smith, started shopping the book and it landed at Little, Brown, which signed the author, in 2008 to a three-book deal.

The manuscript that SMP passed on, originally called Lost River, was published as So Cold the River by LB in June. To Koryta's small fan base, the new book was a noticeable shift. Moving away from the hard-boiled mysteries he wrote at SMP, So Cold the River, which follows a struggling Hollywood director who takes an unorthodox video history assignment in an Indiana town, is a ghost story. While Koryta said a lot of his fans have been focused on the genre shift, LB saw the change in So Cold the River as a chance to launch the publisher's new talent as if he were a debut author.

Although Koryta's written five books at SMP—four of them feature the Cleveland PI Lincoln Perry—he's not well-known outside of the mystery community. He also didn't head into his LB deal with an impressive sales record. Pietsch said Koryta's books at SMP never sold much beyond the 5,000-copy mark.

Despite Koryta's unimpressive sales record, LB has upped its investment in the author. As LB was preparing to publish So Cold the River, book three in Koryta's contract arrived. (Koryta says 2009, which was the first year he spent as a full-time writer, was unusually productive for him; he estimates he churned out more than 400,000 words.) With two of Koryta's contracted books ready for market, and a third in good shape, Pietsch decided to sign Koryta to another contract.

Read more http://alturl.com/pxaun