bookpublishing

This winners and losers edition will talk about who’s hitting the high marks in the publishing industry and who would be lucky enough to stay under the radar.

Let’s start with the losers:
The White House: Looks like another bad-mouthing writer looking to get the truth out there–or some version of the truth. We heard about the dark underbelly of the Bush administration from Sean McClellan, author of What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception. Another book is shaking up the political atmosphere, this time from Bob Woodward, associate editor of the Washington Post. His book, War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008, states that a “secret U.S. program to assassinate terrorists in Iraq”–not the Surge–is “primarily responsible for the reduction of violence in Iraq.” CNN’s Baghdad correspondent Michael Ware debunks some of Woodward’s claims but seems to agree that the Surge is not the cause of the U.S.’s success in Iraq. Interesting to see how people handle this book and the information it contains.

The Winners:
Lots of winners considering the state of things in publishing…

J.K. Rowling: It should be no surprise that Rowling won the suit against Michigan-based publisher RDR Books to cease publication of The Harry Potter Lexicon. Rowling and Warner Brothers filed the suit jointly, claiming the book, written by fan and fansite-owner Steve Vander Ark, would infringe on Rowling’s copyright to the series. I’m glad J.K. won the suit as she has expressed interest in writing her own encyclopedia of Harry Potter information–I’d really rather wait for hers.

John Wiley and Sons: Can you believe it? There’s a publisher out there with an increase in revenue. We need to figure out what they’re doing right. Wiley posted a 3% increase for their first quarter. Scientific, technical, medical, and scholarly segment posted a 6% sales gain, and sales in higher education also rose 6%; professional/education segment fell 3%. Way to go Wiley!

Sarah Palin: The biography, Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned the Political Establishment Upside Down by Kaylene Johnson, is going very strong. If you don’t know about it by now, check out my previous posts. It’s gone to press for 250,000 paperback copies to be distributed via Tyndale House. Yup, I’m bitter.

e-books: Chatter about e-books is definitely in the air lately with publisher’s offering discounts on advance electronic copies ($5 on Alan Greenspan’s epilogue for The Age of Turbulence), which I imagine will become a common marketing strategy. Penn State is doing a year-long study to examine e-book usage in higher education; for that, they received 100 donated Sony Readers. Hey–I’m doing a study too! It’s called “talking about e-books on my blog a lot.” I don’t think they’re listening. Adobe just came out with e-book updates as well. The tide’s a’turnin’.

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