Print Fights On, Lives Another Day

Jan 17, 2014 | News

The Digital Book World Conference marked its fifth anniversary this week. With the selection of Jeff Bezos biographer Brad Stone as a featured speaker, show organizer Mike Shatzkin made plain the central role of Amazon in today’s book world – digital or otherwise....

Barnes & Noble Has New CEO

Jan 10, 2014 | News

The door has opened on a new year – and for Barnes & Noble, the understandable preference is not to look back but to look ahead. In a week that saw B&N’s one-time flagship store shuttered in Manhattan’s Flatiron District, there was much news from the retail...

Best of BTB: New World of Books

Dec 29, 2013 | Best of VOC, Events, News

The arrival of the iPad in 2010 is hailed as the dawn of the “tablet era.” It’s also the genesis of a federal price-fixing lawsuit that has entangled Apple, and many of the country’s largest book publishers. That case, and its aftermath, holds serious implications for...

Publishing Year 2013 Recalled

Dec 20, 2013 | News

From Edward Snowden to Pope Francis, from the Syrian War to the Bitcoin Bubble, 2013 supplied reporters and the public with a hefty share of memorable stories, both ridiculous and sublime. In publishing, eyes were fixed throughout the year not on bookstore shelves but...

Book Business Payback

Dec 13, 2013 | News

For book publishers at holiday time, mailboxes just keep filling up – not with festive season’s greetings, but with attorney’s bills.  In various courtrooms around Manhattan this week, rulings from the bench approved class action settlements in the Apple e-book...

Book Spelled With I

Dec 10, 2013 | Digital Transformation, News

In an age of Twitter and Facebook, the personal is indisputably public. We read about and see ourselves online throughout the day and night. But will we pay to see our family members and their stories in published books, whether print or digital? From...

No War Yet Over Royalties

Dec 6, 2013 | News

Once a quiet corner of the media world, the book business today has a warlike cast. Court battles over copyright questions can rage for years, while clashes over price-fixing and antitrust violations flare then fade. Of all the battles to come to Bookland, however,...

New World of Books

Nov 24, 2013 | Digital Transformation, Events, News

The arrival of the iPad in 2010 is hailed as the dawn of the “tablet era.” It’s also the genesis of a federal price-fixing lawsuit that has entangled Apple, and many of the country’s largest book publishers. That case, and its aftermath, holds serious implications for...

Winners & Losers in Book World

Nov 22, 2013 | News

National Book Award winners celebrated their prizes this week, even as employees at college bookstore chain Follett Higher Education Group consoled hundreds of colleagues who were pink slipped. “We have a great piece in Monday’s issue by Judith Rosen as to why fewer...

Judge Rules In Google Books Scan Case

Nov 15, 2013 | News

All’s fair in the Google Books Case; so says Judge Denny Chin who has issued a landmark ruling in the eight-year case brought by the Authors Guild. Of all those either relieved or surprised to learn a decision – at long last – has come in this case, none may be more...