Next stop: The Breeders' Cup--the 2010 World Series of American Thoroughbreds--will be run on November 6 at Churchill Downs. Zenyatta is already the only mare to ever win the Breeders' Cup. November 6th will give her the chance to become the second horse in the race's history to win it twice.
Here's the Sixty Minutes preview.
What is the meaning of vampire stories and why are they so popular right now? ... What makes vampire literature and films such enduring favorites and how do they reflect the deepest fears and desires of the eras in which they are conceived and consumed?The two guests quickly established that Bram Stoker's Dracula, published in 1897, is the quintessential text for all later vampire novels while F.W. Murnau's 1922 German horror film Nosferatu did the same for films. Worland explains that Nosferatu was an unauthorized version of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Murnau did not even ask Stoker's widow for permission to film her husband's novel; he simply used the word "nosferatu" instead of "vampire," changed the characters' names, and relocated the story to Germany.
... users to read sections of The Fry Chronicles in any order using a colour-coded index ... “This non-linear structure allows you to create your own personal narrative,” promises the app ... myFry’s unique visual index encourages users to discover and interact with Stephen’s story in new and unexpected ways.”A little over a year ago, on September 17, 2009, I said:
Today reading is primarily a solitary experience, even for those people in book clubs who join together after the fact to discuss a book they've read ...Good for you, Penguin!!
In the very near future, people will be able to read a digital book in a social networking environment. They'll be able to comment on the material being read in real time ...
Think about a thousand teenagers reading the next Twilight in a virtual reading room with the author available to talk about the characters and plot.
Texas has sent Amazon .com Inc. a $269 million bill for uncollected sales taxes on purchases made by state residents from the Seattle-based Internet superstore over a four-year period ...The DMN took credit for the investigation that led to this bill being sent to Amazon. The newspaper asked why Amazon wasn't collecting sales taxes in the state despite operating a distribution center in Irving, Texas. The Texas comptroller agreed and started an investigation into "Amazon's taxing status" in May of 2008.
The uncollected sales taxes are from December 2005 to December 2009 and include interest and penalties.
In its Saturday, December 19, editorial, "The Web gets a pass: Online shoppers should pay the same sales tax, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette noted, "While legislators tried to plug a deficit that came with the dour economy, $300 million in sales taxes on Internet purchases go uncollected annually," according to the state Department of Revenue" ....And that is exactly Amazon's defense in the Texas case. According to the DMN:
"The Internet is everywhere -- that is the whole point. It is its own nexus. To heap absurdity upon absurdity, a retail Internet company can have warehouses in a state if it is owned by a subsidiary, which is what Amazon.com does in Pennsylvania."
Amazon contended the distribution center [in Irving, Texas] was owned by one of its subsidiaries called Amazon.com KYDC LLC, which is located at the same address as its corporate headquarters in Seattle.The DMN indicates that Amazon has other distribution centers in the states of Arizona, Indiana, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Virginia. In these tough fiscal times, those states might also find it useful to send a tax bill to Amazon.
... Amazon won a round regarding North Carolina, where ... [a] federal judge ruled against North Carolina’s request for Amazon customer data, stating that the request is unconstitutional, violating First Amendment rights.North Carolina has been trying to collect data on the customers who made purchases via Amazon in order that the state could begin to collect sales tax. U.S. District Judge Marsha J. Pechman in Seattle ruled that information already collected on customers in North Carolina should be destroyed.
Amazon has no offices or warehouses in North Carolina, so state lawmakers last year decided the company's relationships with local marketing affiliates amounted to a physical presence. Amazon responded by severing ties with its North Carolina affiliates, a move it also made in Rhode Island and Colorado.Stay tuned to see how these two cases turn out ...
Moffatt and Gatis [the show's adapters] have said they loved the original stories, and fans can expect to see the new adventures highlighting details, places, idiosyncrasies, plot elements, phrases from the original stories, but with 21st-century twists. For example, in tonight’s first episode, “A Study in Pink,” watch for the clue “Rache,” which was pivotal in the first Holmes story, “A Study in Scarlet,” published in 1887.While the plot lines use details from the original stories, they are not slavish duplicates. Here's the description for tonight's episode from the Daily News:
A wave of suicides grips London, but Sherlock suspects the victims are not, as the police believe, voluntarily swallowing poison capsules. “We’ve got ourselves a serial killer,” he declares. “I love those!” With his newfound friend and flat mate, John Watson, he seizes on the minute details of the most recent victim, a lady dressed entirely in pink, to reveal a mastermind with the perfect cover—and a diabolical motive. But can Sherlock escape becoming the next “suicide”?Benedict Cumberbatch does a fabulous job of portraying a young (34-year-old) Holmes who is constantly borrowing Dr. Watson's cell phone in order to send text messages that will allow him to stay anonymous. Cumberbatch has the lean, hawkish look that we've come to expect for Holmes. He's also mastered the arrogant attitude, but possesses a more engaging sense of humor than Conan Doyle's "consulting detective" did.
[They] recently surveyed more than 5,000 consumers who already own a tablet computer, eReader, netbook, media/games player, or smartphone to get a better sense of who is using these devices and how they are using them.They began by identifying which connected devices the survey respondents owned. The survey indicates that, "Connected devices figures represent household penetration."
... a mobile phone that offers more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary basic feature phone ... we can consider a smartphone as a Personal Pocket Computer (PPC) with mobile phone functions ...
The breakdown of the respondents' connected devices:
Many of the respondents own multiple connected devices with the tablet owners having the highest average number of devices at six.
The survey spent a lot of time looking at Apple's iPad. The iPad stats I found most interesting were those related to the type of content that the iPad users in the survey are accessing. News tops the list as the most accessed content at 44% with music following closely behind at 41%. I was encouraged that the iPad users put book content in third place at 39%. TV shows (33%) and movies (32%) were practically tied for fourth place.
Equally interesting was the amount of time the respondents say they spend on average in a weekday session reading books on their iPads:
Nielsen also addressed the issue of paying for content versus downloading free (public domain) content.
Games came in at #1 as the top content purchased with 62% of iPad owners in the survey indicating they had purchased a game. I was pleased to see books at #2 with 54% of iPad users indicating they had purchased a book for the device. Music was in third place with 50%.
Nielson described their methology for the survey:
The Connected Devices Playbook surveyed more than 5,000 connected device owners who completed an online, self-administered survey in August 2010. The study tracked 54 different devices.Go here to see the release information from Nielsen.
[They] offered it free for three weeks, despite my agent’s repeated attempts to get it taken down. GUNS debuted as the #2 free download for a while and stayed in the top ten for about a week and a half ... GUNS debuted in the top ten on the Paid kindle bestseller list and stayed in the top 50 for a while. All of my books are still being sold by Dorchester on Amazon ...What really ticks me off is that Amazon and B&N aren't responding either.
I’ve had my rights since mid-September and to this day, Dorchester is still selling my books and profiting from them. I truly believe I won’t even see a royalty check from this.
Samhain Publishing announced today that Heather Osborn has been named as Editorial Director, reporting to Christina Brashear, effective November 1, 2010.My first thought was "it's a small world."
Back in the late '90s, Tina Engler was a single mom with two daughters living in Tampa, Florida and trying to get a contract for her romance novels. Unfortunately, she couldn't find a traditional publisher to buy her work because it was so explicit. Traditional publishers were convinced that women would not want to read such detailed sexual descriptions.Among the employees Tina Engler hired to work at Ellora's Cave were these three women: Angela James, a proofer; Heather Osborn, an editor; and Christina Brashear, who began as an editor but worked her way up to become EC's Chief Operating Officer.
After beating her head against dozens of agents' and publishers' doors, Tina decided to publish her own work. In 2000, she started a website called Ellora's Cave and began publishing e-books under the pseudonym Jaid Black.
Tina did no advertising in the beginning. News of her site spread by word of mouth. Soon she had other authors wanting to join her ...
According to an article in Crescent Blues, "In 2003, the company grossed over $1.2 million and paid over $500,000 in royalties."
Bookstore sales fell by their largest rate of 2010 in August, declining 6.5%, to $2.29 billion, according to preliminary estimates released this morning by the U.S. Census Bureau.According to PW, August should have been a strong month for sales because of back-to-school college textbooks.
Note: under Census Bureau definitions, bookstore sales are of new books and do not include "electronic home shopping, mail-order, or direct sale" or used book sales.
I read this item in the comments over at Miss Snark today. It made me laugh out loud. I did a little research and thought I'd share the story with you today.You can read Melissa Cully Anderson's comment on the post here. Thanks, Melissa, for reminding me of this.
This is an actual death notice that appeared in the Raleigh, North Carolina News & Observer (N&O) one year ago on July 2, 2005. I'll tell you more about it after you read the notice.
"On June 3, 2005 at 10:45 p.m. in Memphis, Tenn., Dorothy Gibson Cully, 86, died peacefully, while in the loving care of her two favorite children, Barbara and David. All of her breath leaked out. The mother of four children, grandmother to 11, great-grandmother to nine, devoted wife for 56 years to the late Ralph Chester Cully and a true friend to many, Dot had been active as a volunteer in the Catholic Church and other community charities for much of the past 25 years.
"She was born the second child of six in 1919 as Frances Dorothy Gibson, daughter to Kathleen Heard Gibson and Calvin Hooper Gibson, an inventor best known as the first person since the Middle Ages to calculate the arcane lead-to-gold formula. Unable to actually prove this complex theory scientifically, and frustrated by the cruel conspiracy of the so-called "scientific community" working against his efforts, he ultimately stuck his head in a heated gas oven with a golden delicious apple propped in his mouth. Miraculously, the apple was saved for the evening dessert. Calvin was not.
"Native Marylanders and longtime Baltimore, Kent Island and Ocean City residents, Ralph and Dot later resided in Lakeland, Fla., and Virginia Beach, Va.. Several years after Ralph's death, Dot moved to Raleigh in 2001, where she lived with her son David.
"At the time of her death, Dot was visiting her daughter Carol in Memphis. Carol and her husband, Ron, away from home attending a "very important conference" at a posh Florida resort, rushed home 10 days later after learning of the death. Dot's other children, dutifully at their mother's side helping with the normal last-minute arrangements -- hospice notification, funeral parlor notice, revising the will, etc. -- happily picked up the considerable slack of the absent former heiress.
"Dot is warmly remembered as a generous, spiritually strong, resourceful, tolerant and smart woman, who was always ready to help and never judged others or their shortcomings. Dot always found time to knit sweaters, sew quilts and send written notes to the family children, all while working a full-time job, volunteering as Girl Scout leader and donating considerable time to local charities and the neighborhood Catholic Church.
"Dot graduated from Eastern High School at 15, worked in Baltimore full time from 1934 to 1979, beginning as a factory worker at Cross & Blackwell and retiring after 30 years as property manager and controller for a Baltimore conglomerate, Housing Engineering Company, all while raising four children, two of who are fairly normal.
"An Irishwoman proud of and curious about her heritage, she was a voracious reader of historical novels, particularly those about the glories and trials of Ireland. Dot also loved to travel, her favorite destination being Eire's auld sod, where she dreamed of the magic, mystery and legend of the Emerald Isle.
"Dot Cully is survived by her sisters, Ginny Torrico in Virginia, Marian Lee in Florida and Eileen Adams in Baltimore; her brother, Russell Gibson of Fallston, Md.; her children, Barbara Frost of Ocean City, Md., Carol Meroney of Memphis, Tenn., David Cully of Raleigh, N.C. and Stephen Cully of Baltimore, Md. Contributions to the Wake County (N.C.) Hospice Services are welcomed. Opinions about the details of this obit are not, since Mom would have liked it this way."
This death notice created a sensation in Raleigh. Most people recognized the dark humor being expressed by David Cully, the 60-year-old son of the deceased. However, some readers assumed there was a rift in the family and complained to the News & Observer for publicizing it.
There was so much fuss over the story that the N&O's Public Editor, Ted Vaden, did a column on the death notice a week later on July 10th. He explained that it was a "paid" notice, similar to a classified advertisement. When he contacted David Cully, the son assured him that "the Cully family harmony was fine."
Vaden also quoted the N&O's obituary manager saying he "regretted that the notice had not been edited before publication because it may have not met the paper's standards for taste, decency and appropriateness."
The story didn't die there though. Two weeks after the notice was published, the Chicago Tribune ran a column on Mr. Cully's tribute to his mother.
I've mentioned more than once that I am the result of a marriage between an Irish woman and an Italian man. That--plus the Catholic Church's attitude toward birth control--meant that I spent a fair amount of my childhood either at baptisms or wakes. Although the family did not approve of children at funerals, we were always a part of the wake held in the days before the actual burial.
These events were the only times that both sides of my extended family came together, and I was endlessly amused by the wary way in which they eyed each other.
The fact that we were talking and eating and drinking with an open coffin in our midst was treated as so commonplace that I never feared death. Everyone knew that Uncle Paddy (or Uncle Vito, as the case might be) would have felt left out had he not been a part of his own wake.
The aunts always made an effort to keep liquor out of these events, and the uncles always managed to get around that prohibition. More than once, I was recruited to play whiskey runner and carry a small bottle past the aunts into the wake in a pocket of my dress.
I remember those events with fondness. It was sometimes hard to tell if the tears that fell were from sorrow or laughter. And maybe that's as it should be.
Mr. Cully's humorous tribute to his mother provided a measure of immortality to a woman whom, I suspect, would have appreciated her son's Irish levity.
Over this holiday weekend, a year after the notice ran, raise your glass and toast Dorothy Gibson Cully.
And for the rest of us:
May the road rise up to greet you
May the wind be ever at your back,
And may you get to Heaven thirty minutes
Before the Devil knows you're dead.
While sales in the print trade segments shrank in August, e-book sales had another strong month, jumping 172.4%, to $39 million, according to the 14 publishers that report sales to the AAP’s monthly sales estimates.According to the article, at 12/31/09 (nine months ago), e-book sales comprised 3.3% of trade sales while in August e-book sales had risen to 9% of trade sales.
On Tuesday night in London, English author Howard Jacobson was awarded the 2010 Man Booker Prize for his novel, The Finkler Question.
The Man Booker Prize for Fiction is awarded to the best original novel written in English by a citizen of one of the 54 member nations of the Commonwealth of Nations, Ireland or Zimbabwe. The first prize is £50,000 (approximately $80,000). The other finalists each receive £2,500 (approximately $4,000).
The other finalists for the 2010 Man Booker Prize were:
Publishers Weekly had a very interesting little article yesterday which reported that the judging panel had to contact the publishers of fourteen books to ask that those works be formally submitted for review. Two of those fourteen turned out to be finalists for this year's prize, including the winner.
That's right. Bloomsbury Publishing had to be asked to submit The Finkler Question and HarperCollins had to be asked to submit Emma Donoghue's Room.
A total of 138 books were reviewed by the judging panel for the 2010 Man Booker Prize.
Go here to read Publishers Weekly's Morning Report.
Go here to read Judge Frances Wilson's account in the Telegraph of the selection of the winner.
Ebooks aren’t cannibalizing print books — consumers with ebook reading devices are, as a rule, no longer buying print books.I think he's absolutely right. One of my reading friends--those few people whom I absolutely trust when they recommend a new book or author--is a guy who bought a Kindle about six months ago. He's developed what I regard as a very annoying habit. When I mention a book I like, he asks, "Is it available as an e-book?"
They [e-reader owners] don’t go into stores and are not very likely to shop in online environments that feature ebooks and print books. Ebookstores on ebook reading devices sell only ebooks. Print is not part of the experience.I called my friend earlier today to ask about this. He acknowledged that he only goes into a bricks-and-mortar bookstore when he's with someone who wants to go in. He said when he sees a book he's interested in at B&N or Half Price Books, he makes note of it so he can purchase it for his Kindle.
... it no longer made any sense to have a separate strategy for ebooks: digital had instead to be at the heart of a more general publishing strategy.Go here to read Evan Schnittman's entire post. It's well worth your time.
In conjunction with RT Book Reviews, Brava is sending out a call to unpublished writers of paranormal, historical and contemporary romance, as well as romantic suspense: We’re looking for a hot debut novel to be published in 2012 under the Brava imprint at Kensington.Kensington made the first cuts in-house and have now posted the names of the ten contest finalists along with the first paragraph and last line from their entries.
"What we are contending with is the fact that not as many of us are needed as used to be. Publishing can get on better if it only needs to support about 40% of the people it currently employs."Of course, I agree with him. The publishing industry of today resembles an inverted pyramid with the tiny tip supporting a massive structure. The entire edifice is poised to tip over unless its architects take action to create a more balanced structure.
The panel agreed that, with ebooks currently accounting for approximately 15% of trade sales in the United States, it no longer made any sense to have a separate strategy for ebooks: digital had instead to be at the heart of a more general publishing strategy.Shatzkin warned that the bookstore, as we know it, seems to be on its last legs.
... among its findings are that mysteries, thrillers, and crime novels beat out chick-lit and romance novels by a large margin; and that more women than men read mysteries, thrillers, and crime novels.The Harris Poll was done online during August 9th to 16th of this year inside the U.S. with 2,775 adults. The participants were weighted so that their race, ethnicity, age, sex, education, region and income were matched to the population as a whole.
Among those who read fiction, almost half (48%) read mystery, thriller and crime books, while one-quarter read science fiction (26%) and literature (24%). One in five say they read romance novels (21%) and one in ten have read graphic novels (11%) in the past year. Less than one in ten read chick-lit (8%) and western (5%) books, with 36% saying they read other types of fiction.
Mystery, thriller and crime (MTC) did well across age groups, too. The MTC genre was picked as the favorite in all age groups except the 18 to 33 year-olds. The so-called Echo Boomers picked Literature as their favorite category (42%) and MTC as their second favorite category (41%). However, the 34 to 45 age group (Gen X) listed MTC as their favorite (50%) by a wide margin. Baby Boomers selected MTC as their favorite (47%) by a slightly smaller percentage. And the Mature group (over 65 years old) were the most enthusiastic about MTC (61%).
More than once, I've seen sales numbers for fiction in which the genre breakdown had the following order: (1) romance; (2) sci-fi/fantasy; (3) literary fiction and (4) mystery/thriller/crime.
So, how do we explain the disconnect? As in most cases where the numbers don't seem to make sense, I suspect the answer rests in what is actually being measured. The first explanation that occurred to me is that the Harris Poll addressed reader response, not actual dollar sales. As an example, I have two good friends (Jackie and Rosemary) who are big MTC readers who don't purchase the books they read. Both rely on their local public library to support their habit.
Another likely explanation is that, when sales are reported, the numbers only include the first sale of a book. If that book is resold on the secondary market as a used book, that exchange is not usually recorded. A few years back, the Book Industry Study Group (BISG) did a survey on used book sales and estimated that, in 2004, about one out of every twelve books (8.3%) sold was a used book. They projected that, within five years, that number would become one out of every eleven books sold (9%). That's a significant number of books.
Also, remember that the Harris Poll indicated that "Women are more likely than men to read mystery, thrillers and crime novels (57% versus 39%)..." I suspect there's some wiggle room in that number, too. I have a number of friends who love to read romantic suspense. I suspect that if they were asked which category they're reading when they read books by Allison Brennan, Lisa Gardner, J.D. Robb (Nora Roberts' pseudonym) or Linda Howard, they would all respond mystery/thriller/crime, not romance.
Finally, this Harris Poll was an online poll. That might not make a difference, but it might also very well have something to do with the results. I don't know. I throw it out as a possibility.
One last item that I found interesting. The group of 2,775 adults were asked to list their favorite authors. Here's the list:
1) Stephen King
2) James Patterson
3) John Grisham
4) Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb
5) Tom Clancy
6) Dean Koontz
7) Danielle Steel
8) Dan Brown
9) J.K. Rowling and J.R.R. Tolkien (tied)
The only author of the ten above who would make my current list of favorites is J.D. Robb (Nora Roberts' "In Death" series). There was a time when both Stephen King and Dean Koontz would have made my list, but that was a very long time ago.
Would any of this list of ten make your list?
Around 8pm, two men, claiming to work for Puffin, gatecrashed the party at the Serpentine Gallery and approached Franzen. One snatched his glasses and escaped, before the other handed the stunned author a ransom note and also fled into Kensington Gardens.The Bookseller went on to assure readers that the glasses had been rescued. Police chased the fleeing thieves and later discovered the one who had the purloined specs hiding in some bushes.
The note read: "$100,000 - Your glasses are yours again!" and left a Hotmail address.
Franzen’s Twitter doppelganger, @EmperorFranzen has a practical Tweet for the thief: “TO THE THIEF WHO STOLE MY GLASSES: I need them back to read your friggin’ ransom note. Idiot.”But the capper was the article that popped up on GQ.com on Wednesday. The thief, "a 27-year-old postgrad from Liverpool, currently studying computational aerospace design at Imperial College London," James Fletcher, gave GQ an interview.
I'd mentioned several times to my accomplice how much I admired Franzen's frames and thought that they deserved to be the subject of a hostage-ransom situation. After getting a pen from the bar staff and some paper I devised a short ransom note and we vaguely mentioned to some of the guests what my intentions were. Without thinking about it for too long, I planned my escape route and then passed the ransom note along to be delivered to the victim once I'd made my move.Fletcher then goes on to describe in detail his abortive efforts to elude capture. Go here to read it.
In imitation of the company’s U.S. arm, Amazon.ca is increasingly pushing publishing houses to spend a minimum of 3–4% of annual sales generated through the website on various co-op initiatives. Though not an official requirement for selling via Amazon, publishers say it is strongly encouraged. [Note: Bolded word is mine, not Q&Q's].Publishers are complaining to the ACP that Amazon Canada is pushing them to participate in the co-op program. Some publishers seem to believe that if they do invest the money, they'll receive "a different level of service and the ability to update website information (such as title availability) faster."
Amazon.co.uk is offering publishers participating in its Advantage scheme an "early payment" option of 15 days, in exchange for an extra 2% on top of the current discount given by publishers.I'll confess. I'm enormously conflicted about Amazon. I stopped including links to it on this blog long ago because I dislike their bullying tactics. While I greatly admire the company's emphasis on giving consumers the lowest price and the greatest convenience, their strategies are too much like another company at which I also refuse to shop: Walmart.
The catch is that publishers who do not offer the extra discount will see their payments made on Amazon's "standard terms"--effectively 60 days. This means a publisher who sells a book through Amazon in April would not be paid until the end of June. Under the revised terms, a publisher would be paid on 15th May--a full 45 days earlier . . .
In a blog post, Tim O'Reilly expresses his own larger concern: "As Amazon's market power increases, it needs to be mindful of whether its moves, even those that may be good for the company in the short term, are ultimately destructive of the ecosystem on which they depend. I believe that they are heading in that direction, and if they succeed with some of their initiatives, they will wake up one day to discover that they've sown the seeds of their own destruction, just as Microsoft did in the 1990s."
... "Fall of Giants" by Ken Follett ... was published by Dutton, an imprint of Penguin Group USA, last week. On Amazon.com, the price for the e-book was $19.99; the hardcover edition was $19.39 ... Or “Don’t Blink,” by James Patterson and Howard Roughan, whose publisher, Little, Brown & Company, charged $14.99 for the e-book. Amazon priced the hardcover at $14.Understandably those consumers who purchased a Kindle electronic reading device under the impression that they would be buying best-selling e-books for $9.99 were a mite testy. However, Amazon seems to be doing a good job of directing customers' hostility away from the company.
Print List Price: $27.99The Amazon manuever seems to be effective. If you scroll down that page to the comments, you'll find many potential readers directing their ire to the author and the publisher rather than to Amazon.
Kindle Price: $14.99 & includes wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet
You Save: $13.00 (46%)
Sold by: Hachette Book Group
This price was set by the publisher
From Frank: I would love to read this book, but I have no intention of paying more for an e-book than a hard copy. There is no business model, rational, debate, fact, etc. that can prove to me it costs more to publish an e-book than it does to layout, print, bind, box-up, ship, handle, receive, unload, un-box, store, shelve, ring-up, and bag a hard copy book. Until the publisher figures this out, I'll wait for the used version.It's even worse over at Ken Follett's Fall of Giants' comment stream. While 54 readers have rated the e-book five stars, 184 people have given it one star--mostly because of the pricing issue.
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From Jen: I refuse to purchase this book IN ANY FORMAT until the publisher lowers the e-book price.
It's time for them to come to terms with the technology.
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From: MBR: Today it is ebooks, tomorrow, the world, do not buy this e book until the greed is stopped (not on the part of Amazon who is a victim as they single handedly built the e book market; if you don't believe me look at the state of e books pre-Kindle).
Who are the publishers kidding. An e book cost them ZERO in materials; zero for transport, zero in taking it back if it does not sale. Yet they want to fleece us.
AMERICA show some self control and let it stay there until the price is fare.
Publishers Weekly reported that the new royalty terms give Rosetta authors 50% of net receipts on the first 2,500 copies of the e-books sold, followed by 60% of receipts for subsequent copies.Most print publishers are now offering a 25% e-book royalty while many e-book publishers offer a 50% royalty rate. PW speculated that Rosetta's offer of another 10% after an author sells 2,500 copies "could make a huge difference" for big-selling authors.
[Behind the resolution] of the Random House/Wylie dispute ... is the quiet deal making publishers have been conducting with agents for months to develop a standard digital royalty rate for backlist titles where the ownership of digital rights is unclear.That RH 40% rate only applies to backlist titles and only kicks in after a "specified number of sales."
A source confirmed that the biggest of the “big six,” Random House, has adopted an e-book royalty that tops out at 40% for all titles covered by contracts signed before 1994. Sources said that Random is offering a starting royalty of 25% on these titles—which is the de facto standard in the industry on frontlist books—that then rises to 40%.
... the most reasonable interpretation of the grant in the contracts at issue to “print, publish and sell the work in book form” does not include the right to publish the work as an ebook ... Manifestly, paragraph #1 of each contract – entitled either “grant of rights” or “exclusive publication right” – conveys certain rights from the author to the publisher ... In that paragraph, separate grant language is used to convey the rights to publish book club editions, reprint editions, abridged forms, and editions in Braille. This language would not be necessary if the phrase “in book form” encompassed all types of books.Arthur Klebanoff is both the CEO of Rosetta Books and an agent for Scott Meredith Literary agency. Presumably, wearing two hats helps him to understand that what it takes to snag a best-selling author either for his agency or his publishing house.
A Bowker PubTrack Consumer analysis of second-quarter market trends shows declines in the price paid per book, number of books purchased per buyer, and in the overall dollars spent per buyer. The drops came in comparisons both to the first quarter of 2010 as well as the second quarter of 2009.
These numbers include both p-books and e-books with digital sales in the second quarter ending in June accounting for 3.2% of unit purchases. Compare that to 2.5% in the previous quarter ending March and to 1.9% for the same quarter ending in June in 2009.
Other stats:
The first recorded instance of the term "12th Man" being used was to describe E. King Gill and his actions in Dallas on January 2, 1922, at the Dixie Classic, the forerunner of the Cotton Bowl Classic.From the A&M website:
Texas A&M played defending national champion Centre College in the first post-season game in the southwest. In this hard-fought game, which produced national publicity, an underdog Aggie team was slowly but surely defeating a team which boasted three All-Americans.
Unfortunately, the first half produced so many injuries for A&M that Coach D. X. Bible feared he wouldn’t have enough men to finish the game, so, he called into the Aggie section of the stands for E. King Gill, a reserve who had left football after the regular season to play basketball. Gill, who was spotting players for reporters at the time and was not in football uniform, willingly volunteered and donned the uniform of injured player Heine Weir.
When the game ended with an A&M victory, 22–14, E. King Gill was the only man left standing on the sidelines for the Aggies. Gill later said, "I wish I could say that I went in and ran for the winning touchdown, but I did not. I simply stood by in case my team needed me."
Although he did not actually play in the game, his readiness to play was noted. Since there were 11 men on the field, E. King Gill was the 12th Man, hence the term.
Although Gill did not play in the game, he had accepted the call to help his team. He came to be thought of as the Twelfth Man because he stood ready for duty in the event that the eleven men on the gridiron needed assistance.Laura's father, my middle brother, and I talk most frequently on the phone when we are both driving home from work in the evening. Last night he told me that Laura had met an alum of A&M by the name of Frank Cox, who wrote a book on the Aggie traditions called I Bleed Maroon, maroon being the school's color.
That spirit of readiness for service, desire to support, and enthusiasm helped kindle a flame of devotion among the entire student body; a spirit that has grown vigorously throughout the years. The entire student body at A&M is the Twelfth Man, and they stand during the entire game to show their support. The 12th Man is always in the stands waiting to be called upon if they are needed.
