Welcome to integrative ink

Writerswrite.com's Writer's Blog

• Book Industry Laments the End of The Oprah Winfrey Show

  2009 Nov 24

  The book publishing industry is pretty unhappy about Oprah's announcement that she is ending The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2011. Her impact on the book work has been immense.

  "It's a blow," said Lorraine Shanley, a partner in the consulting firm Market Partners International Inc., who earlier this week watched former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin promote her book on Ms. Winfrey's show.
  
  "Oprah Winfrey has supported many authors, and her book club has had a huge impact on America's reading habits," added Ms. Shanley. "She made Faulkner a best seller again. She also promoted an eclectic group of authors and created publishing successes for many commercial writers."
  
  *****
  
  Over the years, the book club has helped to bring the works of well-known writers such as Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison and Cormac McCarthy to even broader audiences. The show has also introduced writers such as Edwidge Danticat to millions of readers.
  
  "Other than a book being turned into a popular movie nothing brings readers to a book like Oprah," said Dawn Davis, editorial director of the Amistad imprint of News Corp.'s HarperCollins Publishers. (News Corp. also owns The Wall Street Journal.) "She brings a variety of readers to a variety of books. Her impact is immeasurable."

  Oprah has not revealed what she will do next. But she is going forward with the Oprah Winfrey Network on cable, which is a joint venture with The Discovery Channel. Oprah will be running the network, and it's possible that she will host a talk show there as well. If she does that, it's possible the Oprah Book Club will rise again. The book industry certainly hopes so.
  
  Permalink | Recent Headlines | Our News Feeds
  
  

  
  

  

  

• Judge Preliminarily Approves Revised Google Book Settlement

  2009 Nov 19

  A federal judge today preliminarily approved a revised Google Book Settlement which removes most European authors from the deal. But the the Open Book Alliance still objects to the proposed settlement saying it gives Google a virtual monopoly on digital books.

  In an order Thursday, U.S. District Judge Denny Chin in Manhattan granted preliminary approval to the pact and set Feb. 18 as the date for a fairness hearing on the settlement. Last week, Google, the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers submitted a revised agreement that would allow Google to distribute millions of digital copies of books online, but narrowed the number of books covered by the pact.
  
  The revised settlement was designed to allay concerns raised by the U.S. Department of Justice and others that the original pact granted broad rights and immunities to Google and was anti-competitive. The Justice Department said earlier this week that its review of the revised settlement and its probe into the agreement is ongoing.

  The Open Book Alliance's co-Chairman Peter Brantley said: "By performing surgical nip and tuck, Google, the AAP, and the AG are attempting to distract people from their continued efforts to establish a monopoly over digital-content access and distribution; usurp Congress' role in setting copyright policy; lock writers into their unsought registry, stripping them of their individual contract rights; put library budgets and patron privacy at risk; and establish a dangerous precedent by abusing the class-action process."
  
  The hearing to determine fairness will give the objectors a forum to voice their opinions on the settlement.
  
  Permalink | Recent Headlines | Our News Feeds
  
  

  
  

  

  

• Dan Brown Sets Ebook Sales Record for Random House

  2009 Nov 18

  Crain's got ahold of an internal Random House memo which reveals that Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol increased the company's ebook sales by 400% over the prior year. In the first week alone, 100,000 copies were sold for the Kindle. That's a lot of ebooks sold.

  According to an internal Random House report, sales of its Kindle e-books through September 2009 came to $22.6 million, an increase of almost 700% over the $2.9 million in revenue that the Kindle generated during the same period in 2008. The Lost Symbol was a big part of that growth. Published Sept. 15, the thriller sold 100,000 e-books its first week out, or about 5% of total sales for the book.
  
  In the first half of 2009, Random House e-book revenue grew by 400%, says a spokesman. He declined to comment on the more recent numbers, which were disclosed to Crain's by an industry insider with access to the report. The majority of e-books are sold through Amazon's Kindle store.

  Random House had sales of $1.3 billion in 2008, so ebooks are just a tiny part of that revenue. The internal report says that ebook sales are still in an "incubatory period" but that it is an exciting time.
  
  Permalink | Recent Headlines | Our News Feeds