Some of the recent conversation about ebook fair use sparked by the Kindle-and-audio incident made me recall that Joe Esposito and I had written about this problem in Publishers Weekly more than two years ago. We had a different catalyst for our thinking; at the time, we were wondering what the rules should be for […]
Enhanced Ebooks, Part 1
I want to try to lay out a strategic approach to enhanced ebooks which I believe is more extensive than any general house has shown an inclination to pursue so far. I thought the clearest way to express this would be as a letter to an author which is, after all, how a strategic approach […]
Publishing and cash
There are few moments as entertaining at any BEA or Frankfurt than the moments I spend shooting the bull with David Godine. But I just read an interview with David that left me scratching my head. Early in the piece, David says: “First, we are privately held and cash flow is far more important than […]
Amazon’s competitive advantages: will they extend to an ebook world?
Will Amazon’s 70% or 75% or more market share of physical book sales online, plus the currently market-leading ebook reader, the Kindle, lead to a similar dominance of the ebook market as it grows? Despite the early lead of the Kindle, and the lock-ins provided by DRM, no interoperability, the largest selection of current titles, […]
TTS and audio “rights”
There are credible voices in the publishing world saying that the text-to-speech capability of Amazon’s new Kindle 2 constitutes a threat to the value of authors’ audio rights. The most extreme interpretation of the Authors Guild position is that protecting audio rights would extend to prohibiting parents from reading to their kids! But the most recent voice taking […]