Book Expo 2010
It wasn't possible for us to attend Book Expo this year, but a number of friends managed to get to NYC and were kind enough to share their experiences.
Nearly everyone mentioned that a two day show is simply too short. Acquiescing to the majority (and angering the NYC publishers) next year's show will resume the three day exhibition format, May 24 -26 at the Javits Center.
The ABA announced a partnership with the forthcoming Google Editions to make digital books available for all e-readers but Amazon's Kindle.
Cursor's Richard Nash explained why copyrights are irrelevant at a morning panel, using Cursor's 3 year contracts as a business model.
Carole Horne of the Harvard Book Store, Cambridge, MA, acknowledged that the store's reliance on an Espresso Book Machine as part of its three pronged “green delivery system” has received an underwhelming response.
And while the BISG gushed about the rise of the e-book (5% of the total market!) the Wall Street Journal questioned proprietary formats in the industry. Further format discussion is ongoing. And concern about piracy and profits haunts many authors and publishers.
Flat Was the New Down
At last years BEA, the BISG predicted modest 1.8% growth for book sales, proclaiming “flat is the new up” (Slide Show page 30). In April the AAP reported that book sales fell 1.8% in 2009.
All Hail iPad
Even though we're more paper and ink than pixels and iAnything, we've received many questions
about e-book formatting this year, and the introduction of the iPad has spurred about half of them. Current info on iPad formats is still being released. If you use Adobe CS or InDesign, this video offers an overview of converting books to the ePub format for iPads (and many other readers).
This blog is an e-book format do-it-yourself guide.
Calligraphy, Typography and Hermann Zapf
Your word processor probably has at least one font created by Hermann Zapf. In the past century he's designed 61 typefaces, including Palatino, Optima, and a collection of dingbats.
CMYK and RGB
There's still confusion about the difference between what your monitor shows and what your printer produces. Additive vs. subtractive color reproduction isn't that hard to understand, but even with all of your devices (monitor, printer, scanner) calibrated, there is no way to perfectly convert RGB colors to CMYK.
Changes at Borders Group (Again)
Borders has shuffled the name plates in the executive wing one more time. Mike Edwards has been named President of Borders Group and CEO of Borders Inc.
Big time Borders investor ($25 million in May) Bennett Lebow is the new Borders Group Chairman of the Board and CEO of Borders Group. Edwards will report to LeBow (in case you were as confused as us).
Past newsletter issues are available at http://grubstreetnews.blogspot.com/
No. 17 June/July 2010
