I suspect that few of you
are aware that I've not posted a new edition of Book Biz in over a
month. I try to post early each month but was unable to this
December.
I had no sooner emailed
the newsletter to my publishing printing clients than we got an
important telephone call from my daughter in Colorado.
As of December 2 we were
officially grandparents.
We packed up the Conestoga
wagon in record time and took advantage of the perfect weather (ie.
dry) and arrived just hours after the mother and child got home from
the hospital. Although I wasn't able to stay in Littleton as long as
my wife, it was a celebration of naps and nursing, cooking and
cooing, diapers and...well more diapers
Initiation into
grand-parenthood was seamless and painless.
Below, Myles Jacob
Greenman is presented as my sole excuse for submitting my work after
the deadline.
And if you actually were
aware that the newsletter hadn't been posted as usual, God bless you.
I'd always hoped that someone out there was reading this.
Bonehead
B&N Reaction
In
what has to be the most misguided effort to thwart eBook piracy ever,
B&N
has removed eBooks from customer's eReaders after the credit card
they were purchased with had expired.
Given
the missteps of the two largest eBook sellers in removing purchased
eBooks from their customer's readers, I often wonder how many people
understand that, as of now, they can't actually own the eBook that
they paid for.
Digital
Only Has New Requirements
Spurred
by Newsweek's conversion to digital only format, the Alliance for
Audited Media has
imposed new rules on what options their print edition subscribers
are due after digital conversion and new circulation reporting
requirements.
Twitter
Fiction Festival
Ahhh,
the
power of 140 characters. Read the best of the submissions at the
Twitter Showcase
page. Interesting, but not exactly haiku
Government
Work That's Actually Government Work
Occasionally
a print shop employee needs to have something printed for himself or
his family. Often these little jobs can be run in a waste area of a
sheet so there's virtually no cost. Some employees refer to these
jobs as “government jobs”.
But
real government jobs have real costs. In Wisconsin, 64,600 Blue
Books are printed every two years
as a fact book about the legislators and information about the state:
high school yearbook meets Info-Please-Almanac. Senators get 600
copies to give away, Reps only 350. Order your copy now for $7.30
plus shipping. The total cost to the state? $328,000.
In
Mississippi the path to print shop profits was a little more obvious
as Rep.
Kevin McGee directed 258 contracted state printing jobs to his
family's printing company
over a five year time period, amounting to nearly $350,000. McGee has
resigned from the legislature and is negotiating the amount of
restitution he owes the state.
Colbert
on Copyright and First Sale
Stephen
Colbert explains “first sale” copyright law to Colbert
Nation.
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Judge, Jury & Executioner - Copyright Law | ||||
| ||||
BEA
Tackles Flagging Attendance
In
an attempt to recapture some of the bustle from days of yore, next
year's BEA
will allow anyone (aka Power Readers) to spend Saturday
browsing the exhibit floor in the Javits Center for a mere $49.
BMW
Prints
Relief
printing was probably the first print method to mass produce graphics
without a pen and ink. BMW
shows how it's done
in the 21st
century.
The
End of Printing Presses?
This
month's “The End of Something” award goes to this
writer who contemplates digital delivery of all media.
Superstorm
Sandy reminded New Yorkers (and the rest of us) about what
we lose with digital delivery and the benefits of paper and ink.
LightningSource
News
While
Grub Street doesn't work directly with LightningSource or
CreateSpace, we understand that they offer dirt cheap ultra-short run
pricing (50 copies or so) and some ancillary benefits as well.
LightningSource has just announced
new capabilities.
Trees
in Trouble
Rich
Romano, the guru of the printing industry, points out that climate
change is posing a serious threat to the world's lumber/pulp
supply.
Simon
Schuster To Assist Self Publishers
Simon
& Schuster is partnering with Author Solutions to
offer self publishing services. The division will be called
Archway Publishing. Simon & Schuster describes Archway as
offering premium service at a premium cost. Self publishing for the
1%?
Thoughts
on Self-Publishing Costs
Media
Bistro/GalleyCat asked
self publishers about their production costs
and found zero was a common expense.
Final
Thought
