Publishing industry news and related blogs for 12/29/12-1/11/13. Happy New Year, and here's what's happened while you were partying!
Industry News
Who's reading e-books? More people than ever before, but of those who read at least one book in the past twelve months, only 30% have read an e-book in that same time frame. I wouldn't count paper and ink books out of the picture yet, but e-books are showing a significant gain in popularity.
Pearson Publishing, a U.K. publisher, invests in the Nook.
Macmillan's CEO announces that he plans for e-book library lending in early 2013.
It's been a good year and a rough year for Kickstarter: publishing projects alone raised over $15 million (USD), but only 30% of projects got fully funded. In total, Kickstarter raised over $320 million and funded over 18,000 projects. (Each link has more statistics.)
Retailer discounting is already affecting the average price of e-books, which has dropped $0.61 (USD) in the first week of 2013.
Remember when Wiley & Sons sued BitTorrent users for copyright infringement for distributing pirated copies of "for Dummies" books? Users who didn't respond to the lawsuit got stuck with a default judgement against them, a razzling $7,000 from a pair of users in New York. Hundreds of other users are settling or going to court.
Barnes & Nobles reports a 10% decline in holiday sales versus last year, but sales on "core produces exceeded [Barnes & Noble's] expectations," and "the company continues to expect fiscal year 2013 Retail comparable bookstore sales to decline on a percentage basis in the low- to mid-single digits." (I assume they mean they expect sales this year to be 1-6% worse than last year overall, but feel free to make your own speculations.)
Meanwhile, a look at holiday sales for indie publishers has many of them satisfied, showing only a small average decline as compared to last year.
Capstone acquires Maupin House in the children's publishing side of things.
Lulu.com, well-known POD publisher, drops DRM from titles bought through them. Titles bought through Amazon, B&N, and other major retailers may still carry DRM applied by the retailer.
txtr, a Berlin-based company, may be the ReaderLink solution to allowing retailers such as Costco Walmart, and Target to sell e-books without locking into any particular device (such as Nook or Kindle).
The DOJ sets up a timetable for Penguin to join the settlements, with the proposed final approval by May 10, 2013.
According to BookScan, print sales are still declining, at an average of 9% between 2011 and 2012.
Macmillan signs a deal with Entangled Publishing, a quickly rising traditional publishing company that offers a 40% royalty rate on e-books to authors (as compared to the standard 25% for e-books), to handle global distribution of Entangled's books.
Industry Blogs
QueryTracker for 1/4 and 1/11.
Nathan Bransford's the Last Few Weeks in Books from 1/4.
QueryTracker looks at the different types of editors, and defines the levels of editing, in 50 shades of editing.
Publishers' Weekly explains the possible effects of the Copyright Act, which allows authors to terminate contracts entered into 35 years ago.
Afraid of putting on the pounds when you're writing? AppNewser posts apps to help writers keep in shape.
On the Writers Beware blog, Victoria Strauss warns us about Global Talk Radio as not being worth the money, and gives us a quick-reference to the WB's notable posts of 2012.
Suzanne Rock drops by the FF&P blog to talk about marketing on a budget. The trick? It's all in target practice: only investing in marketing aimed at your target audience, not general audiences. Find out where your audience is, and join them.
At Janet Reid's Friday Night at the Question Emporium, she answers how to know whether it's okay to query multiple agents at the same agency (not at the same time; that's a no). Check to see if the agency specifies, oreavesdrop listen on Twitter, or cross your fingers and hope.
Agent and blogger Kristen Nelson posts her year-end stats, such as for her agency, she estimates 32,000+ queries answered, while the agency signed 16 new clients.
If you're not on GoodReads yet, here's a pretty convincing infographic on why you should be: it doubled in size in 2012 and hosts over 20 million reviews.
GalleyCat warns that if FaceBook readers are hiding your posts or un-liking you, it may be hurting your FB visibility.
Jennie Nash guest posts on Rachelle Gardner's blog with 5 surprises she had from self-publishing. She's done both traditional and self-publishing, and reflects on things that took her by surprise in the switch to self-publishing. A good post if you're trying to decide which route to go.
Amanda Patterson explains what a denouement is on Writers Write.
What publishing news or industry-related blogs have you encountered in the past two weeks?
Industry News
Who's reading e-books? More people than ever before, but of those who read at least one book in the past twelve months, only 30% have read an e-book in that same time frame. I wouldn't count paper and ink books out of the picture yet, but e-books are showing a significant gain in popularity.
Pearson Publishing, a U.K. publisher, invests in the Nook.
Macmillan's CEO announces that he plans for e-book library lending in early 2013.
It's been a good year and a rough year for Kickstarter: publishing projects alone raised over $15 million (USD), but only 30% of projects got fully funded. In total, Kickstarter raised over $320 million and funded over 18,000 projects. (Each link has more statistics.)
Retailer discounting is already affecting the average price of e-books, which has dropped $0.61 (USD) in the first week of 2013.
Remember when Wiley & Sons sued BitTorrent users for copyright infringement for distributing pirated copies of "for Dummies" books? Users who didn't respond to the lawsuit got stuck with a default judgement against them, a razzling $7,000 from a pair of users in New York. Hundreds of other users are settling or going to court.
Barnes & Nobles reports a 10% decline in holiday sales versus last year, but sales on "core produces exceeded [Barnes & Noble's] expectations," and "the company continues to expect fiscal year 2013 Retail comparable bookstore sales to decline on a percentage basis in the low- to mid-single digits." (I assume they mean they expect sales this year to be 1-6% worse than last year overall, but feel free to make your own speculations.)
Meanwhile, a look at holiday sales for indie publishers has many of them satisfied, showing only a small average decline as compared to last year.
Capstone acquires Maupin House in the children's publishing side of things.
Lulu.com, well-known POD publisher, drops DRM from titles bought through them. Titles bought through Amazon, B&N, and other major retailers may still carry DRM applied by the retailer.
txtr, a Berlin-based company, may be the ReaderLink solution to allowing retailers such as Costco Walmart, and Target to sell e-books without locking into any particular device (such as Nook or Kindle).
The DOJ sets up a timetable for Penguin to join the settlements, with the proposed final approval by May 10, 2013.
According to BookScan, print sales are still declining, at an average of 9% between 2011 and 2012.
Macmillan signs a deal with Entangled Publishing, a quickly rising traditional publishing company that offers a 40% royalty rate on e-books to authors (as compared to the standard 25% for e-books), to handle global distribution of Entangled's books.
Industry Blogs
QueryTracker for 1/4 and 1/11.
Nathan Bransford's the Last Few Weeks in Books from 1/4.
QueryTracker looks at the different types of editors, and defines the levels of editing, in 50 shades of editing.
Publishers' Weekly explains the possible effects of the Copyright Act, which allows authors to terminate contracts entered into 35 years ago.
Afraid of putting on the pounds when you're writing? AppNewser posts apps to help writers keep in shape.
On the Writers Beware blog, Victoria Strauss warns us about Global Talk Radio as not being worth the money, and gives us a quick-reference to the WB's notable posts of 2012.
Suzanne Rock drops by the FF&P blog to talk about marketing on a budget. The trick? It's all in target practice: only investing in marketing aimed at your target audience, not general audiences. Find out where your audience is, and join them.
At Janet Reid's Friday Night at the Question Emporium, she answers how to know whether it's okay to query multiple agents at the same agency (not at the same time; that's a no). Check to see if the agency specifies, or
Agent and blogger Kristen Nelson posts her year-end stats, such as for her agency, she estimates 32,000+ queries answered, while the agency signed 16 new clients.
If you're not on GoodReads yet, here's a pretty convincing infographic on why you should be: it doubled in size in 2012 and hosts over 20 million reviews.
GalleyCat warns that if FaceBook readers are hiding your posts or un-liking you, it may be hurting your FB visibility.
Jennie Nash guest posts on Rachelle Gardner's blog with 5 surprises she had from self-publishing. She's done both traditional and self-publishing, and reflects on things that took her by surprise in the switch to self-publishing. A good post if you're trying to decide which route to go.
Amanda Patterson explains what a denouement is on Writers Write.
What publishing news or industry-related blogs have you encountered in the past two weeks?
Thanks! These are great. :D
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