Thursday, May 15, 2008

Another Fake, e-Catalogs and ePub

Questions Raised About a New Book
Tuesday's Tennessean had a story about a book released yesterday. The new book, a collection of stories by "Country Music's Greatest Songwriters," included a story titled "He Always Knew Who He Was" supposedly written by "music business veteran Hazel Smith."


"'I did not write that,' said Smith, the woman who famously gave country music's "outlaw" movement its name in the early '70s."

Read the whole story here.

More On Paperless Book Sales Catalogs
Yesterday I reported that HarperCollins has announced they are moving toward an e-catalog. On Monday, the Associated Press reported that:
Cecile Fehsenfeld, who co-owns the Michigan-based Schuler Books, said HarperCollins and other publishers had met with booksellers in March and discussed e-catalogs. She said the response was mixed.

"The general consensus among booksellers was that they are very wedded to a paper catalog," said Fehsenfeld, who likens the paper catalog to reading a traditional book.

"Booksellers like to sit around the table with the catalogs. They thumb through them and make notes. It's a real interactive kind of experience, so there is an emotional attachment to the current kind of catalog."

Fehsenfeld said her greatest concerns were that the transition be made slowly — [Jane] Friedman says it will — and that rival publishers use similar formats.

Friedman [HarperCollins President] said HarperCollins will be meeting with booksellers at the industry's annual convention, BookExpo America, in Los Angeles at the end of the month.

Read the whole story here.

Association of American Publishers Posts Open Letter
According to their website, "the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) is a trade and standards organization dedicated to the development and promotion of electronic publishing."

In September, 2007, the IDPF announced it was adopting the OEBPS (Open e-Book Publication Structure) and its “.epub” file format standard. Publishers Weekly said "The new standard is expected to cut costs and increase the number of e-books because it allows publishers to create one digital book file instead of the six to 10 file formats previously required."

In October, 2007, the Hachette Book Group announced it would be the first publisher to adopt the new file format standard.

Yesterday's Publishers Lunch reported:
In advance of today's IDPF conference in New York, the AAP's [Association of American Publisher's] digital issues working group has posted a letter "to express our support for the use of ePub as an e-book file type for reflowable texts from which any e-book delivery format can be rendered. Many publishers already want to begin a transition process toward this use of the ePub file format and hope such a transition can be completed by October."

Read the letter here.

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