Grub Street Printing Newsletter #80, December 2015

Today, Scholastic Publishing may be best known for bringing the stories of Harry Potter into our homes. Even though the J. K. Rowling series had been successful in the UK, there was certainly no guarantee that a book of witches and warlocks attending an English boarding school would capture the imagination of young American readers.

But to those of us who attended elementary schools in America as the first wave of baby-boomers to disrupt the social order, Scholastic wasn't a major player in the best sellers industry.

Scholastic found titles that would appeal to kids and created a number of ways to make them available to us.

Most memorable for me was the flimsy 8 page newsprint catalog our teacher passed out every three or four weeks. At roughly ten titles per advertised page, and not counting the order form page, that meant we could review some sixty to seventy new books to select the ones that promised the most adventures, the most laughs, the most information, or the sagas of how other kids our age dealt with bad situations in their lives, like not making the baseball team or sobbing as the cute boy next door waved good-bye when his family moved away. This was strong stuff!

In 1920, Maurice”Robbie” Robinson distributed his first sell sheets for kid's books. It was called the Western Pennsylvania Scholastic. Just six years later Robinson offered the first book published by his company, Saplings, a collection of stories written by young people.

If ever someone was born for their career, it was Robbie. He worked tirelessly with school teachers, principals and librarians to distribute his catalogs, believing that the books he sold were wanted, perhaps needed, by children across the country, especially in cities where they were available nowhere else. He was a one man show, selecting the books, writing then printing their descriptions in the catalog, distributing his catalogs, fulfilling the orders and then doing it all over again. He is quoted as saying, “I cannot recall a day where I did not look forward to tackling the work that was waiting for me in my office,” and I'm pretty sure he was serious.

Once the Scholastic name was well known and trusted he began to hold Book Fairs at schools, libraries, churches and firehalls, another effective way to sell books to children.

In my elementary school, the teachers passed out the sell sheets, and we returned the order forms with our money a few days later to the teacher. When the books arrived there was not only the fun of flipping through your new books, but the event of passing out the books effectively burned a boring hour of classroom time.

A publisher friend sent me a book to quote the other day. He wanted to reprint a Scholastic title from 1961. I flipped through the book, and on the last page found this familiar information about starting a Scholastic Book Club at your school, church, scout troop, whatever. They only requirement to order was that at least 15 books were ordered together...each costing either 25¢ or35¢ including those in full color.

I may have been a slightly dorky kid because I loved books about how things worked and random facts. What's the deepest part of the ocean, the coldest spot on the earth, how do they breath in a submarine?

And growing up near Detroit I had an early fascination with cars and the automobile industry. I ordered a copy of Don Stanford's The Red Car from Scholastic and it was a glorious book. I still remember it. The car was a red MG, not even made in Detroit. The story is

about Hap Adams, a 16 year old boy who finds a way to own his dream car, repairs it and then learns to race it. What could possibly be cooler to a 12 year old boy?

I recently thought it would be fun to find an old copy of The Red Car on the internet so I checked BookFinder.com. The cheapest copy was $54.00 for the 1954 Scholastic edition. I really believe it was a great book...for 35 ¢.

But Amazon has reader's comments about the book and I am apparently not the only person who bought the book from Scholastic, not the only one who recalls details of the story 50 years later, and not the only one who can mark its influence on his life.

Books do that to people.

I'm betting a lot of you remember a book or two from Scholastic that had a story you remember.

Ebook Sales Slow for Publishers

Major publishers have seen ebook sales decline to the point that some have discontinued reporting their sales figures in their financial statements, including their sales either under the broader heading of Digital Revenue, which includes audio books among other things, or Trade.

Reversing eBook Sales Declines

Pointing out that only Amazon has seen increases in ebook sales, the author calls for more innovation...be like Amazon. Good luck!

Serial Killer's Novel Yanked by Amazon

An ebook entitled A MAD World Order by Paul Bernardo, jailed for the the murders of two Ontario teenagers in the early 1990s, has been withdrawn for sale on the Amazon web-site

                                     PBS' Book View Now

Our local PBS station is trumpeting the creation of regional book fair coverage in America. These fairs are generally a lot of fun to attend...and it's very heartening to witness how intensely and emotionally the visitors value books and reading.

Why Is Ed Tech Growing So Fast?

Ed Tech remains a controversial, even dubious adjunct to actual teaching. Acknowledging that, the market continues to expand, perhaps because there seems to be an assumption that digital everything is better than analog anything. Leading Ed Tech company McMillan Education is partnering with Blinklearning to pursue promising technologies.

Rediscovering Letterpress

A Brooklyn designer discovers letterpress printing, appreciates the feel of the printed piece, hikes to North Carolina, opens her print shop and becomes one of the Ladies of Letterpress.

Book Nerd Problems

Epic Reads has a YouTube channel for its Book Nerd Problems videos.

Amazon Goes Brick & Mortar

After rewriting the rules for book retailing Amazon has opened a bookstore in Seattle to discover exactly what they killed decades ago.

Binge Reading

Most of us know people who will use a service like Netflix to watch episode after episode of the same television show. Apparently something similar can occur with books.

Buy a Read, Get a Ride

In a country where people read just two books per year, L&PM Editores, Brazil's largest trade paper publisher, bound RFID chips in certain titles (The Great Gatsby, Sherlock Holmes, etc.). The chips can be used for ten subway trips and can be recharged. Even cooler, the covers are designed to look like subway maps.

Carmen Sandiego Is Back

HMH has released an app for iOs and Android that revives the story and play of the Carmen Sandiego brand, originally released 30 years ago for PCs.

International Publisher Scores Domestically

Open Letter Books, a publisher of international literature, discovered a title at Frankfurt that put them on the map locally.

Free Short Stories

Grenoble, France, has installed eight kiosks in their downtown area that dispense free

printed short stories in one, three, and five minute lengths. The content is supplied by an app called Short Edition with 140,000 users who share their writing.

Final Thought

“The failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision and strengthens our most fatal tendency -- the belief that the here and now is all there is.”
Allan Bloom

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Archived Grub Street newsletters can be found at http://grubstreetnews.blogspot.com/

Grub Street Printing Newsletter #79, November 2015

At every Book Expo I've attended, a large part of the show floor was dedicated to companies that dealt exclusively with “remainders”. Remainders were not only inventory that had ceased moving, but books returned by Ingram et. al. called hurts; these were titles with some sort of blemish that made the book unsaleable in a retail setting. Further, in order not to dilute sales of newer titles that were selling, some publishers would remainder books to the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand etc. where the heavily discounted books wouldn't cannibalize domestic sales.

Remainder dealers were the ultimate bargain hunters. They bought books from publisher warehouses by the pound or by the pallet for pennies on the publishers' dollar cost, then resold them.

Borders had a warehouse a few miles from our company, Baker Johnson, Inc., that housed their remainder division, reputedly their most profitable.

Some remainders are offered by mail order companies like Daedalus Books whose catalog is available to any company (publisher, printer, bookstore, etc.) that had an employer ID #. They remain in business both online and mailorder. And anyone who has walked into a Barnes & Noble bookstore knows that the front 20% of the sales floor is consumed by remainder titles.

While I never would have purchased a copy of Chronicle Books Bird Song Bible for the $125.00 cover price, B&N's $25.00 seemed reasonable and, while not an avid bird watcher, living adjacent to a 1,000 acre state forest does present us an occasional opportunity to drag the three pound book off the shelf.

But while talking with a friend who not only publishes a lot of books, but also controls his distribution, the remainder industry is struggling. He faithfully attends remainder shows like CIROBE, CIANA, and GABBS (Great American Bargain Book Show), and many of the various expos that set aside room for remainder sellers.

According to him, however, the remainder market is in transition. The wealth of titles once available has contracted. Not only are the shows moving to smaller venues and consolidating with other wholesale events, the number of dealers is also contracting.

Now part of this is the result of some major publishers contracting with specific remainder dealers who have agreed to purchase any and all remainders regardless of subject matter for a predetermined price...most likely by the pound. Of course some publishers with a strong web presence sell the their remainders online (generally not labeled as hurts) and one successful small press in Chicago brings their hurts to the Printers Row (Book) Lit Fest and sells them for half of their cover price which is nearly what they'd receive for them wholesale anyway.

There are organizations that readily accept book donations. The Asia Foundation specializes in educational and technical books that can be distributed to Cambodia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, etc. They are unable to pay the freight charges that will be incurred in shipping the books to their American offices in California, but there are tax benefits available for such donations.

The remainder companies fill a needed role in the retail book industry even though some consider them as lowly bottom feeders. What other options are there for getting rid of “hurts”? Pulping them? Having worked in book printing shops for decades I can tell you that a full gaylord carton of books that failed inspection might bring $20 for hundreds of copies from a recycling company, but even that can be risky. Years ago, a New Jersey recycler was caught selling the (mostly textbooks) books he had been sold to recycle online.

Some years ago I was talking with a production manager employed by a publisher that had just been sold. As we spoke a remainder agent was loading all the hurts that his employer had accumulated over the years into his truck before the sale was complete. I asked him if he felt bad to see all those books he's worked so hard on being sold like that. He said he had only one regret; “I wish I'd have done more books on 60# text stock.”

 

Google Wins...

The law suit begun ten years ago continues to to drag through the courts. The U.S. Court of Appeals bought into Google's argument that scanning books and posting "snippets" of them on the internet helps to sell more books and found in their favor.

...Apple Appeals

This suit has its roots in 2010 when Apple began selling ebooks on its iBooks site and was sued for price fixing by the Federal Government. After a string of adverse decisions Apple has petitioned to have its case heard by the Supreme Court.

“100% Happiness Guaranteed” Option

I'd be interested in some feedback to this article that argues that the ebook marketplace will inevitably change and ebooks will either be free or the readers would pay whatever they felt fair after they've read the books. Really.

Amazon Sues Fake Review Writers

Citing at least 1,000 phony reviews, freelance writers paid by Fiverr.com are being sued by Amazon. The FTC has also cracked down on companies that knowingly post fake reviews.

Nag eMails

For those of us who frequently begin reading a magazine article, lose interest and move on to something else, The New Yorker has a cure. It can now send e-edition readers a reminder to go back and finish reading that story!

Frankfurt Book Fair Stories

I've always wanted to attend the Grandaddy of all book shows. PW covered this year's fair extensively, noting that attendance rose from last year's dip.

Printers Talk About Publishers

The relationship between printers and publishers is a balancing act matching capabilities to needs. These printers discuss publishers' changing requirements and what it will take to meet them.

World Series Libraries Duke It Out

Chippy librarians in Kansas City started a war of words on Twitter when their Royals battled Toronto's Blue Jays and Toronto's librarians responded. When the series moved to the Royals playing New York's Mets it was game on.

28% of Us Didn't Read a Book Last Year

Competing formats, Amazon's market dominance and the occasional dirth of blockbuster titles wouldn't be worth discussing if more Americans overcame the hurdles to appreciate reading.

Grammar Rules You Can Break

I was fortunate to study under the best high school English teacher ever for two years and I wish Mr. Wonnberger was here to give me his opinion of these ten grammar rules it's okay to break.

Textbooks Defy Disruption

A market place that has seen pricing increases of 945% since 1978, yet has only five major players controlling 85% of the market has somehow proven immune to the many disruptions that have faced the publishing industry at large.

NaNoWriMo Time

November is National Novel Writing Month and for those who are prone to procrastinate (like me) but respond well to deadlines (not like me), NaNoWriMo offers a framework to write (or finish) that novel you've been meaning to get to.

Visit A Bookstore on Small Business Saturday

A respite from the retail nonsense that is the Thanksgiving weekend is the opportunity to visit your local bookstore. Special discounts, author signings and publisher promotions will remind us book stores are magical places.

Final Thought
The multitude of books is making us ignorant. Voltaire

Archived newsletters are available at http://grubstreetnews.blogspot.com

Grub Street Printing Newsletter #78, October 2015

I've heard book collecting is a neurosis, but all collectors, of everything from little silver souvenir spoons to juke boxes of the Benny Goodman era, function outside the bounds of logic as they assemble the bits and pieces of whatever arcana fuels their addiction.

Neuroses are odd because many would succumb to mild psychiatric treatment, yet most of us choose to endure that part of our psyche that has elected to play the game of life slightly out of bounds.

Last month I described a great old cookbook I purchased because it had three banks of indexed, tabbed thumb notches. There were murmurs from a reader or two that boiled down to, “Seriously”?

Well, it gets better. Book collecting can include any number of permutations. There are collections of poets and authors, first editions and signed copies, finely bound volumes of the 16^th century and lurid paperback covers from the 1940s. Actually most collectors I've met have multiple categories they gladly accumulate for reasons only they could reveal.

So yes I do have a cookbook collection. My oldest date from the late 19^th century, many titled as receipt books, the evolution of which came to be known as recipe books. Copies of the Dr. Chase's Receipt Book: Or Information for Everybody were printed and bound on the corner of Main Street and Miller in Ann Arbor and contained everything from baby foods to prevent colic to common kitchen cures for farm animals. Dr. Chase and his steam powered presses began the book printing industry in Ann Arbor, no matter what a certain Ann Arbor book printer claims.

But age doesn't drive my love of cookbooks. Having produced hundreds of cookbooks I know that the publishers are concerned and involved with the design and production of the book itself, more so than the editors of novels or technical books. There's cover art to catch the eye, binding to lay flat on the counter or elegant on the shelf, sized large enough to allow lavish graphics or small enough for a crowded drawer.

And maybe sometimes the recipes themselves shine. Why else have a copy of Famous Cape Cod Recipes (1944) if not for the instructions to make Ginger Ale Souffle?

I have an undated copy of Our Daily Bread from the Eastern Maine General Hospital Women's Auxiliary which proudly features a silk screened cover by Frank Hamabe of Bluehill, Maine with ink so thick and shiny on the front cover you'd think it had been enameled. As silk screen adds a bit of cost to a book's production, the good women of the Auxiliary must have believed their shiny red and blue cover would surely catch the browser's eye, and it did mine.

Leave it to the photographers at Life magazine to produce this over-sized edition of Picture Cook Book at a full 10 ¼ x 13 3/4”. The interior photographs are what you would expect from a team of Life photographers and printed on a heavy Mead dull enamel arranged in sections throughout the book, printed by Livermore & Knight Co. of Providence Rhode Island while the text was letter-pressed on uncoated stock by Rogers Kellogg Corporation, Long Island City, New York. The plastic comb binding, which survives intact after over 60 years of use, was by Spiral Binding, Inc. of Paterson, New Jersey.

Who could resist the snazzy little Hotpoint people dressed

smartly in red unitards scampering over a roasting turkey on the cover of Electric Cookery by Hotpoint and proudly announces on the back cover “By Appointment to Her Royal Majesty The American Homemaker”? It has twelve full color chapter opening changes and perhaps 75 crisp black and white halftones. It's printed entirely on dull enamel stock and bound with 8 metal rings that originate between the last text page and inside back cover.

In 1941, The Three Mountaineers, Inc. of Asheville, N.C. decided their book of

cocktail recipes would be titled Here's How and be bound between two wooden boards tied with leather lacing. The front cover/board is decorated as if wood-burned and then painted (more likely silk-screened) in four gloss colors. The text contains numerous pen and ink caricatures throughout and signals the tenor of the day with a drawing of an African American working a punching bag beside the recipe for Chocolate Punch.

There's also the 1916 edition of Manual for Army Bakers, a 1905 edition of A Little Cook-Book for a Little-Girl, and a 1967 edition of KOA (Denver) radio's Hello Neighbor, a collection of phoned in recipes from the morning show, Hello Neighbor. Each title is an example of the divergent roles and audiences cookbooks address.

Like most neurosis, once revealed and explained, they are excruciatingly banal and benign.

Because I still work extensively with smaller, newer publishers I expect a lot of “How do I...” questions. Can I use Garamond on the title page? Do I need an LCC number? Should the dedication go on the left or the right? Can I start the book with a blank page?

Beginning publishers seem to believe that there's a secret publishing manual somewhere and if they perhaps use a display type face for the title page, they may be breaking some hard and fast rule in the secret book and they will be forever marked as amateurs. They don't believe me when I tell them it's their book and they can produce it however they like.

Cookbook people are different. They have a strong sense of how to format their book right from the start, which is probably why I like accumulating their books. They are not bound by any traditional sense of book design so they approach the design and production as a blank slate and they have a boxful of chalk.

It's a refreshing and extremely welcome approach to making books and I enjoy collecting them as much as making them.

Just in Time for Banned Book Week

A Tennessee mother has called for a 59,000 student school district to ban the book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. The novel recounts how human cells from a hospital patient were able to survive in a lab in 1951. The social and moral complications that arose are presented in the novel.

Amazon Monopolizes German Audio Books

While Americans are asked to believe there is such a thing as an unregulated, benevolent monopoly, German booksellers know better and have asked the European Commission to investigate Amazon's (and its wholly owned subsidiary, Audible) control over 90% of the German audio book market.

McGraw Hill Education Going Public

After years of extreme profitability selling required textbooks to impoverished students, McGraw Hill Education hopes to raise $100 million to figure out how to do the same digitally by issuing and selling stock to the public.

Tattered Cover Sold

Denver's iconic Tattered Cover bookstore is being sold. The forty some year old store flourished under the founder's focus on providing a bookstore that uniquely understood its customers' needs.

If It Worked Then, Try It Now

Many years ago a publisher told me that most bookstores depend on non-book sales for about 60% of their revenue. In that spirit, publisher EverAfter Romance is adding a line of “romantic” products to sell on its web-site.

Oyster Closes

In the February 2014 newsletter we reported that the Oyster ebook subscription service had already reached 100,000 titles available for rent at $9.95 monthly. Oyster is going out of business with pundits proclaiming it was a great business model that Oyster simply mishandled, ignoring the elephant in the room, Amazon's Kindle Unlimited.

eBook Sales Falling, Paperback Sales Grow

While ebook sales have turned from stagnant in 2014 to dropping 10% through first five months of 2015, paperbacks sales grew 8.6% through the first quarter of the year.

B&N's Long Path to Recovery

Another glimmer of hope as Barnes&Noble cut losses year over year, even as revenue shrank 1.5% due to flagging digital sales.

Papal Rush Job

In order to present Pope Francis with a bound remembrance of his trip to New York, the Archdiocese of New York selected Luke's Copy Shop on Staten Island to produce the full color 190 page wire bound volume in 24 hours.

Literary Taverns

From Tolkein to Dostoevsky, Pound to Joyce, literary giants had their favorite watering holes. Here are seven still operating taverns that enjoyed the company of numerous scribes.

Video Book Trailers

I had no idea that in order to get even a smidgen of cyber recognition, videos teasing the story of your story on YouTube are requisite, just as a few years ago setting up a MySpace page for your title was the only way your book would be noticed.

Final Thought

Banned Book Week Edition

“All these people talk so eloquently about getting back to good old-fashioned values. Well, as an old poop I can remember back to when we had those old-fashioned values, and I say let's get back to the good old-fashioned First Amendment of the good old-fashioned Constitution of the United States -- and to hell with the censors! Give me knowledge or give me death!” Kurt Vonnegut

Grub Street Printing Newsletter #77, September 2015

   

A couple of the newsletters I got last month reminded me that book ornamentation need not be confined to ornate covers or a profusion of graphics sprinkled through the text. While such design elements are generally ignored in the minimalist design of ebooks, traditionally the book bindery could decorate a book far in excess of the capabilities of the press. The newsletters each specifically referenced gilt edging, a feature that can still be found on books manufactured in the 21^st century. Stamping gold leaf on the trimmed edges of a book is not only ornamental, the gilt edging also resists dirt and dust and somewhat seals the paper edges from moist air which can begin the phenomenon of foxing, or discoloring of the pages.

Most of us are probably most familiar with gilt edging on Bibles or other religious books but the good people at Abe Books point out that gilt edged books were common in literary tomes which frequently also sported foil stamped covers with ellaborate design elements.

Edge gilding is not a complicated process. The unbound book is clamped to align the page edges to form a flat, solid surface, then a sheet of gold leaf is laid over the edge of the book and pressure is applied to the leaf. While many hand binderies gilt edge books manually, this video uses a machine to apply even pressure to the leaf.

I think edge gilding is about the only bindery option for the trimmed book edge today, but there were numerous options in the past both ornamental and practical.

Years ago many books, even cheap pulps, had the trim edges stained or perhaps speckled. Staining was presumably an inexpensive way to protect the trim edges from dirt and dust while speckling was purely ornamental.

Fore edge painting is a forgotten art today, a unique decoration so time intensive it can hardly be found in anything but special edition volumes. Fore edge painting is accomplished by fanning the edge of the book and clamping it to again provide a smooth, hard surface. A watercolor artist then paints the trimmed book edge with a painting that may or may not be relevant to the book's subject matter. After drying, the book is released from the clamp. While the painting appears as nothing more than bits of color on the edge of the closed book, the reader who fans the pages will reveal the artist's work. It's even possible for a book to have double fore edge painting when fanning the pages one way with another painting revealed when the pages are fanned the other way.

Another time intensive effect, but one that is more practical than decorative, is indexing the edge of books. Bibles and cookbooks were most frequently notched or step indexed. The process is hand work done in the bindery. The operator physically opens the book to the proper page (identified by a press mark denoting the page and position) and rolls the pages back. The book is positioned, a switch or lever is activated to put the familiar half moon cut into the beveled pages and the operator moves on to the next notch. Often a protective tab was positioned on the correct page beneath the notch before the operator opened to the next page.

Some years ago I purchased a 1940 edition of The American Woman's Cook Book, a rather run-of-the-mill cookbook that has green stained (to match the cover cloth) thumb notch indexing in three banks of nine thumb notches each along with printed identifying tabs for every notch (Breads, Salads, etc.). The book reminds me that production costs occasionally must give way to function (and occasionally to art), perhaps even more so in the age of the ebook, when the very form of the book itself should be celebrated.
The September newsletter follows.

RR Donnelly Re-Invents Itself...Again

RR Donnelly,, has announced that it is splitting into three companies: Financial Co. (to offer one stop shopping for corporate financial services), Publishing and Retail-Centric Print Services (printing and business supplies), and Customized Multichannel Communications Management Company (offering everything from direct mail to web site hosting). The latter, aka CMCo, will inherit RRD's $3 billion debt and $677 million of underfunded pensions.

These presumably will replace their “six vertically integrated service platforms”: Creative Communications, Financial Management, Legal Support Services, Research and Analytics, Office of the Future, and Call Center and Customer Care functions.

Saving Lives One Book at a Time

The beauty of books and the book form is amazing. These inexpensive books help provide safe drinking water to populations that don't have access to clean water.

Eco Paper Mill

Domtar, a leading supplier of book printing papers, has announced that it now produces 74% of the power used in its manufacturing process.

Book Zones

Over 300 years ago, Grub Street was a London district devoted to books. Korea expanded the idea to Paju Bookcity where the focus includes large doses of the technology that produces books. And Tokyo has Jimbocho, shoe-horning a book-centric district into one of the densest cities in the world.

Adult Coloring Books? There's an App for That

Based on some reviews, transitioning coloring books from ink and paper to digital screen hasn't found as wide an audience as good old crayons on toothy paper.

Can You Design a Cover in 2 Weeks?

To mark the twentieth anniversary of the publication of David Foster Wallace title Infinite Jest, its publisher, Little Brown and Company, has offered $1,000 for the cover design chosen for this edition. Hurry, deadline is September 15^th.

Authors United Requests DOJ Probe of Amazon

Authors United (AU) has doubled down in its brawl with Amazon requesting a Department of Justice investigation of Amazon's monopoly of the book industry, specifically ebooks.

Amazon Employees Got Them Workplace Blues

A New York Times article describing a cut-throat white collar culture at Amazon created enough furor for CEO Jeff Bezos to ask unfairly treated employees to contact him directly.

Politician Accepts Kickbacks From Printer

George Gallo, former GOP chairman in Connecticut, has been ordered to pay $117,000 restitution for accepting $117,000 in kickbacks from a Florida printer, as well as being sentenced to 13 months in prison.

Japanese Bookstore Out-monopolizes Amazon

Kinokuniya, Japan's largest book selling chain, has purchased 90% of the first printing of popular author Haruki Murakami's new title to stall Amazon's order fulfillment of the title.

Are Digital Classrooms Better?

Converting traditional classrooms to digital is costing $10 billion per year but it may be time to analyze the educational benefits for the students.

Final Thought

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
Haruki Murakami

Grub Street Printing Newsletter #76, August 2015

Amazon Sued Again

Authors United (AU) and the American Booksellers Association (ABA) have partnered in a lawsuit charging Amazon with monopolizing book sales. Did the authors and book sellers just now realize that selling Kindles and ebooks at a loss just might have been the key to monopolizing the ebook market?

Audio Editions Continue Growth

Forget eBooks. Revenues for 2014 showed audio books climbed 13.5% over the previous year while eBook revenues rose just 3.8%.

Facebook Wants In

Now that various Facebook pages have sold millions of books, Facebook wants a cut of the action and is working on providing book specific retailing pages.

Publishing Thresholds

That this is causing such a stir up north surprises me. A successful American publisher told me 15 years ago that he didn't want to develop books that couldn't support a 25,000 copy first printing.

Print Gremlins Still Run Loose

The digital revolution in book production seems not to have been successful in eradicating the fiendish print gremlins. The UK edition of Harper Lee's new title shipped with text missing from six pages. Eye-witness accounts of the gremlins have yielded these renderings.

Following Literary Footsteps

Is there a book in your past that left you with new insights about America seen with fresh eyes? Follow the paths of Jack Kerouac, John Steinbeck and ten other novelists (whose stories were published from 1872 to 2012) with routes from this map of their literary travels.

NYC Library Confronts Illiteracy

For a variety of reasons the availability of ebooks hasn't affected illiteracy rates for the poor, a problem the NYC library is addressing.

Sorry, This Just Sounds Stupid

New Zealand start-up Booktrack has just secured another $5 million in funding. It sells apps that play music while you read your ebook, presumably for folks that worry their iPod doesn't have just the right tunes for serious reading.

Roald Dahl Apps Available

When my children were young they found Roald Dahl stories strange, funny and sometimes frightening. If you have Roald Dahl fans in your family, Penguin's new apps feature Dahl's characters the Twits (e.g. Don't Wake Up Mrs. Twit!) and are available for both Android and Apple devices.

Social Media for Writers

The premise behind this infographic seems disheartening to me, but for the self-promoters among us there may be some worthwhile tips.

B&N's Nook Circling the Drain?

B&N's new CEO, Ron Boire, may feel some pressure to kill the unpopular Nook ereader, despite the fact that B&N stockholders believe in it. B&N has spent over $1 billion developing the Nook and an updated version will be introduced in early fall, just as Boire assumes control.

The Problems (and Joys) of Moving

As my son begins moving into his first house, I'm reminded of one of the sweatiest, yet most enjoyable aspects of a move.

eBooks Allow Better Editing

Can ebooks rushed to print allow authors to edit more carefully before committing to print?

Final Thought

“For a moment I was distracted. Books always did that to me... I liked the creamy pages, the smell of ink, all the secrets locked inside.” Elizabeth C. Bunce

*********************************************************Archived Newsletters are available at http://grubstreetnews.blogspot.com/