Publishers Weekly is the first in the industry trade to report on the closure of Vantage Press. Vantage Press, one of the original ‘vanity’ publishing businesses, has closed three years after its acquisition by media investment banker David Lamb. In a letter to creditors received by PW, law firm Hendel & Collins of Springfield, Mass. writes,…
How To Avoid The Vanity Publishing Trap
Over the weekend TIPM received an email from an author expressing frustration with trying to navigate the minefield of submission while trying to secure a home for his/her manuscript with a reputable publisher. The email went something along the lines of: “I have read your description of XXXXXXX [publisher name redacted] as a vanity publisher. Can you advise me how to…
John Oakes of Or Books on Disintermediation
I’m currently researching a piece at the moment on control, disruption and discoverability in the publishing world, so I was certainly interested to come upon this piece by John Oakes of Or Books on Amazon and disintermediation which appeared late last week on Publishers Weekly. I’m all for large publishers embracing the digital revolution – in-house as…
Google Will Move to Dismiss Authors Guild Suit | PW
Google Will Move to Dismiss Authors Guild Suit: “Is the long-running legal drama over Google’s scan plan drawing down? In a scheduling order filed last week, Judge Denny Chin acknowledged that attorneys for Google indicated they would be asking for dismissal of both the Authors Guild and publishers’ suit, as well as the related visual…
Industry Sales Rose 3.1% in 2010; Trade E-book Sales the Big Winner | PW
Industry Sales Rose 3.1% in 2010; Trade E-book Sales the Big Winner | PW “Total book publishing revenue rose 3.1% in 2010 to $27.9 billion and posted two-year growth of 5.6%, according to figures released Tuesday by BookStats, the joint AAP, BISG program developed to create a comprehensive analysis of industrywide sales. As expected, the…
Traditional Book Output Up 5%; Nontraditional Soars | Publishers Weekly
Traditional Book Output Up 5%; Nontraditional Soars Glad to see this year that PW leads the way in properly defining what ‘non traditional’ means in regards to preliminary figures released by R. R. Bowker. Last year far too many on the media bandwagon referred incorrectly to ‘non traditional’ titles as being all self-published. “Despite the…
Google Settlement Parties in Court Today | PW
Google Settlement Parties in Court Today “The book world should get a little better sense of what is next for the Google Settlement later today as the parties are scheduled to gather in judge Denny Chin’s courtroom at 4:30 pm for a court-ordered status conference. The conference comes after Chin’s stunning rejection of the proposed…
Random House Switches to Agency Model For E-book Sales | PW
The news from Publishers Weekly this evening: Random House Switches to Agency Model For E-book Sales: Random House, Inc., the last of the big six houses still using the wholesale model for e-book sales, announced plans to adopt the agency model effective March 1. A Random House spokesperson said that now the house will set…
Web Seminar Debates How Self-Publishing Will Lose Its Stigma | Publishers Weekly
Web Seminar Debates How Self-Publishing Will Lose Its Stigma: But first, about those aforementioned bestsellers? Panelist and author Jason Pinter expressed his frustration at always hearing the same few names repeated as examples of how lucrative self-publishing can be. “What annoys me is that the same names are always used: Godin, Konrath, Hocking, The Shack,”…
PW: Two Self-Publishing Stories That Led To Success
Two Originally Self-Published Picture Books Hit Their Strides “Self-publishing ventures turned into very different publishing experiences than expected for two first-time authors. Jennifer Fosberry and Cheryl Kilodavis, each inspired by one of their own children to pen a picture book, followed divergent paths to get their books into print, yet their publishing stories had similar…