Germany Joins World Book Night 2012 – Publisher’s Weekly
World Book Night has announced that Germany is the second international partner alongside the United States to stage a national one million book giveaway for adults on April 23rd, the Unesco International Day of the Book.
Fantastic news! Be a giver.
A Publisher’s Perspective on Ebooks – American Libraries – Andrea Fleck-Nisbet
As publishers, the challenges we face in light of the digital revolution are myriad and touch every aspect of the business, from acquisition, design, and production to marketing and distribution.
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Although the possibilities for producing interactive ebooks and apps are now seemingly endless, resources for most publishers are limited and the market has been slow to keep pace with our enthusiasm for creating these new products. One of our biggest challenges today is deciding where to focus our time and energy as the digital landscape evolves and the consumer’s needs change.
An excellent history of digital publication, and a practical outlook for the future.
Children’s Authors at Winter Institute – Publisher’s Weekly – Judith Rosen
Ever since Algonquin used the American Booksellers Association’s Winter Institute to get booksellers to read and fall in love with Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants, which sold more than a million copies before being turned into a film, publishers have been using the winter bookselling confab to generate excitement—and not just for adult titles. This year more than 20 children’s book authors and illustrators will be on hand to greet booksellers at the seventh annual gathering, Wi7, next week in New Orleans.
John Green, Jennifer Nielsen, and Lisa Stasse are among the YA and children’s authors at this event! Check out the link for a full list of the authors and books.
Random House of Canada Takes Over McClelland & Stewart; Canadian Pubs Unhappy – Publisher’s Weekly – Leigh Anne Williams
Canada’s biggest multinational publishing house just got bigger. Random House of Canada has become the sole owner of McClelland & Stewart, one of Canada’s oldest publishing houses.
Random House has owned a share of M&S since 2000 when its sole owner and chairman Avie Bennett sold it 25% of the company and donated 75% to the University of Toronto with the intent that M&S would maintain its editorial independence. Random House had been providing services such as sales, production, human resources and accounting to M&S since that time. But according to the announcement from Random House today, M&S had “been experiencing financial challenges” attributed to the difficult economy and digital-driven transitions.
HarperCollins has announced it has preempted rights to a three-book middle-grade series by director Chris Columbus, to be called House of Secrets. Columbus, the director of two Harry Potter movies and many other films, will co-author the books with YA writer Ned Vizzini (It’s Kind of a Funny Story). The first book is slated for spring 2013.
Read on for some more information about this series! Sounds very intriguing – I think I’d enjoy it, too.
If you’re a Nerdfighter like me, you probably already know all about John and Hank’s awesome TFiOS van and their tour across the country. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, continue on…
An abundance of fans (among them, some Katherines) will see Printz Award-winning author John Green on his 17-city tour for The Fault in Our Stars (Dutton, on sale Jan. 10).That day the Looking for Alaska writer and his younger musician brother, Hank, will launch their three-week road trip in a Sprinter van, decorated with the cover of the new novel (about two teens with cancer who fall in love) and quotes from Markus Zusak (“you laugh, you cry, and then you come back for more”) and Jodi Picoult (“an electric portrait of young people who learn to live life with one foot in the grave”). As the 34- and 31-year-old siblings travel, they will broadcast shows through their VlogBrothers YouTube channel.“I’m a pretty introverted person, but I decided to go on tour because I knew it would be good for the book,” says Green, who will leave his wife (a contemporary art dealer) and two-year-old son at home in Indianapolis. “It’s really important to launch the book as aggressively as possible. I also feel really strongly about trying to make the case for brick-and-mortar bookstores…. I think it’s crazy, crazy that book tours lose so much money. They shouldn’t. Book tours should be part of what keeps independent bookstores vibrant and profitable.”
Walter Dean Myers Named National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature – Publisher’s Weekly – Sue Corbet
Myers’s international reputation rests on a body of work that is big, bold, and varied – picture books, lyric poetry, fantasy, biography, and, perhaps most notably, realistic fiction that does not blink when it comes to depicting the lives of America’s urban poor. It’s the needs of those teens, in particular, that Myers plans to focus on during his two-year term as ambassador.
He will be a leader in encouraging children and young adults that reading is important, as well as raising awareness to literature for all ages.
Reading 55 Books in 2011: What I learned – Publisher’s Weekly – Gabe Habash
This isn’t publishing news, per se, but it is an excellent and detailed account of what goes on across the year when setting a goal to read x-many books. Nearly everything Habash states (forgetting certain details of books that moved you at the beginning of the year, doing the math, pushing for x+ books once the goal seemed attainable) is similar to what I went through during the 50 Book Challenge. That, and he promotes GoodReads!
At the time of this writing, I have a beard and I’m finishing up The Colossus of New York. It’s the last book I’ll read this year, which started off innocently enough in January, but by winter became something of a maddening ascetic bender. This is what I learned from reading 15,000 pages in 2011.
He discusses poor memory and the pros and cons of reading goals. Cool blog post!
What will your goal be for 2012?
When Borrowing Isn’t Free – Publisher’s Weekly – Peter Brantley
Wheeler’s is a private company developing an e-book platform that enables libraries to charge for e-book lending. And, another critical feature, it also offers support for the outright purchase of e-book titles from book distributors, versus licensing. In addition to clarifying the legal status of e-books in a library collection, “purchasing” the e-book also permits libraries to be more flexible with their funding, in comparison to paying recurring license fees. Further, the ability to charge patrons for e-book rentals generates friction in lending, and helps to compensate libraries for the costs of ebook purchasing.
Could an experiment in New Zealand help US libraries and publishers come together on ebooks?
Scribbles & Wanderlust 