Amazon legitimizes fanfic.

Take a look at Amazon's new initiative, Kindle Worlds. This is really interesting from a rights and derivative rights perspective. Fanfic is huge and this really opens up new possibilities for fanfic authors. But perhaps more interesting, if fanfic is truly legitimized, what does this mean for mainstream fiction and the role readers play in shaping genres, stories, and the collective understanding of literary niches?

Book Apps: Roles for Libraries Beyond Mainstream Digital Books

Yesterday, ALA's TechSource, sponsored a presentation on "The Book as App, ."  available from the first link below. For me, the best part was the presenter Nicole Hennig's strong belief that there were multiple roles for librarians involved with book apps, including "book app expert," helping with the discovery and even the production of book apps. This message fits very well with our central theme at the research group for non-traditional publishing. Librarans need to embrase the world of digital publishing beyond the digital versions of mainstream books. There are multiple roles possible within the expert rubric: knowledge of available non-mainstream published books, discovery roles, and even lending roles. We believe a major task for libraries is to figure out how to own and lend non-mainstream digital books. As you may  know, several experiments are underway, including Douglas County, Colorado, (second link below) and Califa  in California. (third like). Undoubtedly there are others, and we would like to hear about them.

 

 https://alapublishing.webex.com/alapublishing/lsr.php?AT=pb&SP=EC&rID=5529377&rKey=23c9a56abdf1f721

 

http://boingboing.net/2012/05/10/libraries-set-out-to-own-their.html

 

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/smashwords-califa-to-let-library-patrons-self-publish-books_b53675

 

Mainstream Publishers "Colonizing" Self-Publishing

I like this characterization of Putnam's move into self-publishing, and others that may follow, as colonization.  The dominant publishing culture moving into the self-publishing culture, looking for riches?  Can the metaphor be pushed any further?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jul/22/publishers-ebook-popularity?newsfeed=true

Softward for Creating Apps, including books, for the iPad

Not everyone will be interested in reading the whole interview here, but it highlights the availability of software for Apple ipad apps, now including books, which will no doubt translate into more books for iPad.

It is also yet another example of a major source of innovation and change in all aspects of publishing--employees in various publishing sectors with good ideas and lots of energy form start-ups, doing things their way.

 http://www.businessinsider.com/this-startup-run-by-ex-apple-designers-is-about-to-change-the-entire-publishing-industry-2012-7

Big Six Division goes DRM-free and predicts more will follow

TOR and FORGE Books, imprints of Tom Doughterty Associates, LLC, a division of MacMillian, will be sold DRM free through major e-tailers. Interesting quote from senior editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden, "To the best of our knowledge we're the first division of a Big Six publishing conglomerate to go down this road, but we doubt very much that we'll be the last."
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/07/torforge-e-books-are-now-drm-free

Jana Bradley

The big news is the purchase of Author Solutions by Penguin (Pearson PLC). This is a major boundary crossing move. Author Solutions owns many of the original independent self-publishing houses. Googling on Penguin will pull up many articles. Here are 2

http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2012/penguin-buys-self-publishing-platform-author-solutions-for-116-million/?et_mid=569151&rid=2960666/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremygreenfield/2012/07/19/self-publishing-turns-a-corner-with-penguin-acquisition/


Interesting move by a US senator taking sides in the DOJ Apple suit

http://betanews.com/2012/07/19/senator-schumer-sides-with-apple-and-publishers-in-ebook-price-fixing-case/

Amazon Singles Pioneers Many Boundary-Crossing Practices

Amazon's imprint Singles is the focus of Laura Hazard Owen's Our Guide to E-Singles, July 29, 2011. Although mentioning some other short-form publishers, such as Atavist, she concentrates on the pioneering publishing venture by Amazon, started in January 2011. Owen points out a number of interesting features of Singles. It is open for submission to publishers (Hachette's short story by David Baldacci), agents (Jodi Picoult's three short contributions), and self-publishing authors. Singles has a submissions policy highlighting excellence, and seemingly an editorial apparatus, including an editor who makes comments, behind its selections. Attractively, Singles offers a very short window to publication for successful submissions. Owen calls singles, by which I assume she means what is variously called short form book publishing or long-form journalism, the hottest trend in publishing. She also speculates that it could be disruptive for the industry.

If by disruptive she means crossing traditional boundaries and showcasing a new hybrid publishing model that combines elements of traditional and non-traditional publishing, then I definitely agree with her. Singles offers a publication platform that can be used by anyone for submissions, including publishers, established authors, agents, and self-publishers, reminding me of Lulu's move to position itself as an open publishing platform. While we don't know the reality behind the stance of selectivity, their stated submissions policy and their editorial apparatus seem to place them between self-publishing and mainstream selectivity.

In the heterogeneous, hyper-abundant online book marketplace of today, Singles is a way of segmenting and branding a particular type of ebook, countering, in a somewhat oblique way, the problem of Spamazon by saying basically, "here's our good stuff."

Sending the authors, after they have been accepted, to Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) uses the very simple automated publishing mechanism of KDP. And use of KDP continues the boundary-busting combination of price and royalties that has attracted many authors, established and self-published, to ebooks.

By courting a wide variety of submissions and adding trappings of selectivity in an automated publishing environment with an author-friendly royalty arrangement and a reader-friendly pricing arrangement, Singles is crossing all sorts of traditional boundaries with seeming success. And all that is in addition to the innovative encouragement of short-form “books,” which might well be one of the major contributions of ebooks to both writing and reading.