Book Marketing Experts Forum

April Hamilton

Self-Publishing, Author Platform
ISBNs Don't Matter As Much As You Probably Think They Do, But You Might Want To Start Owning Your Own Anyway 2010-08-31 06:29:00 PM

Facebook Strategy
The FFP (Facebook Fan Page) Basic BasicsThe best way to create a community around your book on Facebook.com is via a Fan Page. Each newly created page comes standard with Facebook's basic tools (Info, Events, Photos, etc). Once you get a handle on that, there's a dizzying array of customization options to improve your page & attract/retain fans. I will be posting on both basic and advanced options here on EverPub. If you have a specific question or topic, shoot an email my way: booksonfacebook at gmail dot com -- Now, for everyone who’s thinking of starting their own Fan Page sometime soon, here’s a short set-up guide. Step 1: Use A Facebook Account - If you don’t have a Facebook account, you must set one up to create a Fan Page. If you do, go ahead and create your Fan Page while you are logged in to you per

David Wilk

Marketing, Strategy, Business Guidance for Writers
I Tweet iPad: Why technology matters to writers and publishers 1969-12-31 07:00:00 PM I’m recommending that every writer and publisher should buy an iPad and start exploring the Apple App Store in order to understand why technology matters so much to writing and reading.I’m also recommending that writers and publishers create Twitter

Justin Loeber

Web Professional
Secret Comcast Mail Services 2010-05-04 10:24:33 AM FYI (and for future reference) if you are having problems sending mail to comcast.net subscribers you can use this super secret website to help: http://postmaster.comcast.net/

Laura Dawson

Consulting
Move Along Folks, Nothing To See Here 2010-08-05 12:37:59 PM The announcement on Tuesday that “Barnes & Noble Is Putting Itself Up For Sale” pretty much set Twitter on fire last night. Where had this even come from? We thought Borders was the one in trouble! Make no mistake, Borders is still in trouble. But the state of Borders has nothing to do with B&N’s pondering [...]

Liz Dubelman

The Answer
VidLitLIZ DUBELMAN is the founder of VidLit Productions, LLC, the world-renowned book marketing and content-creating company. VidLit is best known in the publishing world for its success with the book, "Yiddish With Dick and Jane," the sales of which more than doubled thanks to the online promotion. This year VidLit will launch its digital publishing arm. She co-edited What Was I Thinking? 58 Bad Boyfriend Stories, [St Martin’s Press 2009]based on the VidLit series of the same name. The book has been optioned by New Line for a film and has also been adapted as a play. Ms. Dubelman's 15-year digital career includes creating and producing original programming for MSN and American Cybercast. She served as Creative Director of News Corp MCI, and has been a consultant to all of the major studios in the area of digital rights and Internet conten

Liza Daly

ebooks, epub
DocBook-XSL 1.76.0 released for testing with many EPUB enhancements 2010-09-03 07:28:28 PM Version 1.76.0 of the open source DocBook-XSL stylesheets, which convert DocBook documents into a variety of outputs including PDF, HTML, and EPUB, has just been released into the wild for testing. It includes a number of EPUB enhancements and bugfixes that

Marianne C. Bohr

Publishing Consultant/Distribution/Editing
I am a seasoned industry insider with over 25 years in book publishing. Highly organized, prepared, connected and informed, I am able to communicate new, important information clearly, so that clients can grasp it, remember it, and use it. I collaborate with self-published authors and small independent presses worldwide who know me for my professional, experienced counsel. A book publishing advocate and ambassador, I love to share my experience with growing publishing companies. I understand their needs and have helped many go from struggling to succeeding.

Neil Levin

Operations
Hot today – not tomorrow. 2010-08-20 11:22:37 AM Read this post today about how hard it is to keep up with the constant changes in Internet and Social Media Marketing. Duh. The speed of change is astounding. While Facebook and Twitter are the darlings today – what will be hot tomorrow? Probably an app being tweaked at this moment on somebody’s development site [...]

Penny Sansevieri
Marketing, Blogging
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NEW FROM PUBLISHER'S LUNCH

Posner and Simon & Schuster Sued for Infringement, As Publisher Faces Odd Campaign Finance Allegations As Well

2010-09-08 11:53:49 AM

In March Gerald Posner admitted his fall 2009 book MIAMI BABYLON included some passages from Frank Owen's CLUBLAND. At the time, Posner blamed faulty research methodology, and said "if you use something from another book, a statement from another book, it needs to be in quotations, or if you take something and put it in your own syntax and grammar, you still need to cite it." He promised to review his book further and revise the material. (This came a month after Posner resigned from the Daily Beast after it was found that he copied material from Miami Herald articles online, which he said was "inadvertent.")

Now Owen has filed suit in a Manhattan Federal court against Posner and publishers Simon & Schuster, alleging "numerous examples of word-for-word copying." Claiming copyright infringement, the suit says Posner's book "is little more than a frequently verbatim precis of significant portions of Clubland, a verbal reduction sauce in which 30,000 words are reduced down to approximately 10,000 and yet the flavor remains the same." In a separately posted letter, Owen writes that "Simon & Schuster has known since March that Miami Babylon contains dozens of plagiarized passages, yet six months later, they continue to sell the book. It's obvious that Simon and Schuster not only condones plagiarism but continues to profit from it."

The suit cites many comparative passages, though most are one to three sentences long. But they allege broadly that "through approximately 10,000 words of Miami Babylon, Posner almost exactly copied Mr. Owen's sequencing of events (even when not purely chronological); Mr. Owen's use of third party sources; Mr. Owen's factual sequencing; Mr. Owen's use of quotations and the emphasis provided by such quotations. In short, Posner's theft of Mr. Owen's protected expression was not only by verbatim copying."

Simon & Schuster spokesman Adam Rothberg tells the NY Post that while Posner acknowledges "inadvertently used phrases" that "to suggest that this usage amounts to copyright infringement is entirely without merit. As the complaint makes clear the unattributed use of phrases at issue was limited and in the reporting of factual events. Mr. Posner and Simon & Schuster will vigorously defend this lawsuit."
NY Post
Filing

In a more unusual allegation, last week an attorney for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee wrote to Simon & Schuster, "hinting that the publisher may have violated several campaign finance laws that prohibit in-kind contributions by corporations by posting on its website a promotional video" for the book YOUNG GUNS: A New Generation of Conservative Leaders. Politico reported that because the video is produced by Representative Eric Cantor's PAC, the publisher's posting "seems to use corporate resources in coordination with Congressman Cantor to redistribute his leadership PAC's partisan campaign material."

S&S did not respond to Politico's story.
Politico

People

2010-09-08 11:51:59 AM

Senior director of publicity at William Morrow Dee Dee De Bartlo is leaving after 12 years at HarperCollins to join February Partners, co-founded by her former HarperCollins colleague Gretchen Crary. She says in the announcement, "we really feel the future of the industry is dismantling the silos that exist between publicity and marketing in the big publishing houses and coming up with solutions that maximize a book's exposure." Additionally, Kimberly Cowser has joined February Partners as online marketing manager.

At Harper UK, Jenny Heller has been promoted to publishing director for general nonfiction at Collins, and Lizzy Gray has been promoted to senior commissioning editor for cooking and lifestyle, the Bookseller reports.

People, Etc.

2010-09-07 10:31:33 AM

Jeanette Limondjian is leaving Barnes & Noble this week "to start the next chapter in her life." She has been with the company for over 40 years, starting creating store windows and writing radio ad copy and most recently serving as vp, editor at large and new business development at Sterling Innovation.

The London Book Fair announced that China has signed on as the "market focus" partner for the 2012 convention.

Carey and Levy Lead Booker Shortlist

2010-09-07 08:07:27 AM

The Booker Prize is down to six shortlisted titles, and the winner will be named October 12. In the meantime, US rights to Howard Jacobson's book have been picked up Bloomsbury USA, which will publish on September 23. Until then, the UK "export edition" ebook is available here from Amazon only.:

Peter Carey, Parrot and Olivier in America (Faber and Faber)
Emma Donoghue, Room (Picador)
Damon Galgut, In a Strange Room (Atlantic Books)
Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question (Bloomsbury)
Andrea Levy, The Long Song (Headline Review)
Tom McCarthy, C (Jonathan Cape)

In other awards, China Miéville's The City & The City and Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl tied for the Hugo Award for best novel.
Complete list of winners

The inaugural Penguin Prizes for African Writing went to Pius Adesanmi's You're Not a Country, Africa! for nonfiction, and Ellen Banda-Aaku's Patchwork for fiction.

More Imprint News: Voyager Expands, Touchstone Drops Fireside

2010-09-06 04:35:35 PM

HarperCollins will rebrand its Eos imprint in the US as Voyager--a name the company already uses for similar sci-fi, fantasy and horror publishing in the UK and Australia/New Zealand. The change will take place with their January 2011 releases. CEo Brian Murray says in the announcement, "uniting our sister companies in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia/New Zealand allows readers globally unparalleled access to books and authors. This move enables us to offer authors a strong global publishing platform when signing with HarperCollins -- whether the acquiring editor is in New York, Sydney, or London."

Simon & Schuster's Touchstone Fireside division will drop the Fireside name, starting with their fall releases.

Mockingjay's Big Opening Sends Scholastic Back to Press

2010-09-03 11:14:22 AM

Scholastic announced that they have sold more than 450,000 print and ebook copies of Suzanne Collins' MOCKINGJAY in the first week on sale, and have gone back to press for another 400,000 copies. Print sales in outlets tracked by Nielsen BookScan were a little over 350,000 copies in the first five days of sale, through August 28.

That easily ranks among the biggest opening weeks this year, well above even the opening sale for even Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest in May. (Little, Brown Children's said they sold 350,000 units of Stephenie Meyer's The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner in the first two days on sale.)

Indies Take Over Book Reviews for San Diego Union Tribune

2010-09-03 11:11:23 AM

Following the elimination of the San Diego Union Tribune's arts and book critic, four area bookstores--Warwick's, Mysterious Galaxy, The Book Works, and The Yellow Brick Road--have joined with the newspaper to provide weekly book content. Each week starting as of August 22, one store takes a turn recommending and writing about a title.
BTW

People

2010-09-03 08:49:37 AM

Kobo has hired Marina Glogovac as chief marketing officer. She is the former ceo of online dating service Lavalife.

Denise Little will join the Ethan Ellenberg Literary Agency this month. She was formerly executive editor at Tekno Books, head of Kensington''s Denise Little Presents imprint, and a buyer for Barnes & Noble. She will represent romance, paranormal, mystery, thriller, science-fiction/fantasy, non-fiction, Christian books, and horror.

Eric Mullett has moved over to marketing director at Thomas Nelson Fiction (he was running marketing for their gift book division), and Katie Bond has been promoted to publicity manager. Heather Cadenhead has been hired as publicity coordinator for the line.

If you were curious about the job Borders cfo and coo Mark Bierly left for, he's joining expanding convenience store operator Pantry, "which operates stores under banners like Kangaroo Express."

People, Etc.

2010-08-31 10:21:27 AM

Executive chairman of Australia and New Zealand bookstore giant RedGroup Retail (comprising Angus & Robertson; Borders ANZ; and Whitcoulls) Rod Walker is leaving his job. He took over after the Borders acquisition.

The company says they have obtained the waiver from their loan covenants that they were seeking in the wake of reduced EBITDA of $ 25 million for the current fiscal year. Owners Pacific Equity Partners indicate they are "exploring a range of options to strengthen its balance sheet longer term."
TVNZ

Timber Press has hired Andrew Beckman as their new editorial director, starting September. He was formerly the editorial director of gardening and vp for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, where he oversaw gardening content throughout the company. He is also a cohost on the Sirius Satellite Radio show Homegrown.

Sourcebooks has hired Leah Hultenschmidt as senior editor in their New York office, acquiring romance and YA projects for their Casablanca and Fire imprints. She was editorial director at Dorchester.

Turmoil continues at the Virginia Quarterly Review in the wake of managing editor Kevin Morrissey's suicide and an investigation of accusations of bullying by the editor. The winter issue has been cancelled and the journal has "closed its offices," the NYT reports. University of Virginia spokesperson Carol Wood says, "The staff has been through a lot, and they needed to step away and take some time. We thought it might be best for all involved on the staff to take a break and step back and wait for the conclusion of the internal review."

People and Distribution

2010-08-30 10:04:12 AM

Kobo has announced the opening of their New York office, focused on publisher relations and
US content acquisition. Ami Greko joins the company as senior manager, vendor relations, books. She was director of business development for GetGlue after having managed
digital marketing for Macmillan. Jan Ehrlich has been hired as director, newspapers and magazines. She was most recently director of business development for Texterity.

Kobo notes in the announcement, "Publisher relationships are something we take very seriously at Kobo. Our work with US-based publishers is growing at a frantic pace as we continue to add new vendors, deepen our retail relationships, innovate on devices, and manage the intricacies of agency relationships. Expect to see us in person more often, at more conferences, running and sponsoring events and generally making more noise."

Self-publishing giant Author Solutions believes that authors need education or inspiration--or at least are inclined to pay for some. The company announced the hiring of Suzette Conway as director of author education, "charged with creating educational workshops and programs--both online and onsite--that will help authors optimize their publishing, book marketing and book-selling efforts."

CEO Kevin Weiss says in the announcement "it makes sense that we provide educational services to the growing number of aspiring indie authors who may need only a little guidance and encouragement to reach their publishing goals."
Release

Rowman & Littlefield has a new expansive agreement to provide publishing services, both in print and electronically, as well as complete sales and distribution services, to four university presses: the University of Delaware Press, Bucknell University Press, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press and Lehigh University Press.

The presses will continue to maintain their own editorial staffs, with Rowman & Littlefield taking over "once a decision to publish has been made." The four presses "previously collaborated in a similar fashion with Associated University Presses."

Bloomsbury Does Better with Publishing than Investments

2010-08-26 11:24:02 AM

Sales at Bloomsbury rose 4.5 percent in the first half of the year, to 36.8 million pounds, though pre-tax profit fell by a little more than half, at 949,000 pounds. Profits on the publishing side fell by 23 percent, mostly due to the inclusion of the new Bloomsbury Professional unit (based on their acquisition of law and tax publisher Tottel), "which is typically loss making in the first half of the year."

Investment income on the mountain of residual Harry Potter cash declined much more sharply, down from 842,000 pounds to 180,000 pounds, reaffirming that the company is much better at publishing than running a mutual fund. With a cash balance of 33.5 million pounds, the pressure will continue to find appropriate acquisitions. Chief executive Nigel Newton told Dow Jones that, following the recent pattern, they are targeting acquisitions of specialist publishers, along the lines of the Tottel purchase.

Bloomsbury USA was one of the company's best-performing units in the period, with sales up 2.3 percent at 8.9 million pounds and a rebound to profit contribution of 600,000 pounds after virtually no margin a year ago. Berlin Verlag was among the weakest performers, with sales falling 34 percent.

The company will launch Bloomsbury Australia in 2011, along with an Australian version of their successful Public Library Online subscription program, which debuted in the US this summer.
Statement

People, Etc.

2010-08-26 11:07:41 AM

At William Morrow, Peter Hubbard has been promoted to senior editor.

At Touchstone, Lauren Spiegel has been promoted to associate editor.

In the Eataly food and wine center opening at the end of August in the former Toy Building on lower Fifth Avenue in New York, led by Lidia and Joseph Bastianich and Mario Batali, Rizzoli Bookstore will be the exclusive bookseller. They will also manage book signings by chefs giving classes and demonstrations in the space.

Tyrus Books, founded last year, announced that they are acquiring fellow crime fiction publisher Busted Flush Press. Busted Flush publisher David Thompson "will continue in his current role, selecting approximately twenty titles a year for publication. Both companies are distributed by Consortium.
Announcement
http://www.tyrusbooks.com/news/?p=200

This Time Borders Hires, and More

2010-08-24 06:03:44 PM

Borders has hired Michele Delahunty-Cloutier as evp, chief merchandising officer, overseeing merchandising, marketing and supply chain and reporting to Mike Edwards. Most recently she was brand president for Chico's FAS, and she had been svp, general merchandise manager for Ann Taylor Stores.

Borders has also named Eric Kovats regional vp for the Southeast and Beatrice Vicente as regional vp for the West Coast. Kovats was regional vp at Stores for Heartland Automotive Services, "the largest franchisee of Jiffy Lube Stores in the country."

In other personnel news, at Crown, Rachel Berkowitz has been promoted to manager, foreign rights, and Nidhi Berry has been promoted to subsidiary rights associate, with both reporting to director of subsidiary/foreign rights Linda Kaplan.

NBN will distribute Writers of the Round Table Press and their forthcoming new SmarterComics series of business books presented in graphic-novel form, which launches in January 2011.

Barnes & Noble Today: Waiting for Earnings, As Riggio and Burkle Both Say They Don't Want to Work Together

2010-08-23 11:32:05 AM

The next news event for Barnes & Noble will be the reporting of first quarter earnings tomorrow morning. Analysts surveyed by Thompson Reuters are expecting a loss of 80 cents a share on sales of $ 1.42 billion, though the company's guidance was for a new loss in a range of 85 cents to $ 1.15 a share. The net loss for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2010, reported June 28, was 89 cents a share. At the time, BN said they expected first quarter Barnes & Noble.com sales--where Nook revenues are recorded--to increase between 30 percent and 50 percent. BN store comps were expected to range from flat to up 3 percent, and college comps were expected to be flat.

Meanwhile, an unspecified "source familiar with the sales process" tells Reuters "nothing is going to happen for a while. It is a long road we're on." The source also says "A sale isn't the only option. It's a full process. Restructuring and any number of options are on the table." (Given that the company has very little debt, restructuring probably implies a potential rearrangement of the company's assets (the superstores; Nook and the online store; the college stores; and the publishing division).
Reuters

Separately, NY Magazine has a long piece on the battle between Len Riggio and Ron Burkle, with interviews with both principals. Their quotes would indicate an unwillingness to partner in taking the company private.

Riggio laments that he was "'the largest single sucker' in the ruinous investment in Source Interlink," controlled at the time by Burkle. Referring to a letter Burkle wrote following the announcement of the deal with Barnes & Noble College, Riggio wrote: "He told me he saw himself as a 'humanist,' perhaps owing to his associating with the former president. This was all the proof I needed to my growing suspicion that he was delusional." He also wrote: "What I realized then, and I now know with conviction, is that this guy actually believes that all the distasteful things he does are virtuous. Therefore it is an absolutely no-win situation to engage him in a game he loves to play."

Burkle expresses nearly the same sentiment in a different way: "I think it'd be hard to take anything private with Len. He has way too many conflicts." And he remarks, "With Len, you're either on the good-guy list or the bad-guy list, and I think I'm on the bad-guy list."

Of course it's hard to take Burkle's comments at face value. He still pretends that "I'm not trying to get control, I just think that with the issues in front of the company, you need new, independent board members." And he says, "This is not a battle between Len and I, even though that's what everyone wants it to be." Yet "in the next breath, Burkle said that now that Barnes & Noble's board was looking for a buyer, he would certainly consider a bid."

His larger position is that "I think people will continue to buy books. But even if we're wrong, Barnes & Noble will still be alive for five or ten more years. They really should be the last store standing."
Riggio article

Books-A-Million Comps Decline 3.4 Percent As Earnings Improve

2010-08-20 12:10:49 PM

The bookseller reported second quarter sales of $ 120 million, down 2 percent overall and down 3.4 percent on a same-store basis compared to a year ago. Net income of $ 1.9 million was up $ 500,000 compared to last year. BAMM ceo Clyde Anderson says in the release, "our team did a good job to deliver solid results in a tough environment" (which is what they usually say).

They claim in the release that it was a difficult comparison to a year ago--"the success last year of the Twilight series and titles from Glenn Beck and Mark Levin proved difficult to match with this year's lineup." But for those keeping track, they used that excuse a year ago (claiming at tough comparison to the release of Breaking Dawn), and in the same quarter in 2008 as well (citing "tough comparisons to last year due to the record-breaking sales of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows")

They
Release