Reed Expo Closes the Book on BookExpoAmerica

COVID-19 has claimed one more elderly victim. Reed Expo, the parent company of BookExpoAmerica, NY ComicCon, and other trade shows, has announced that they are killing BookExpo, BookCon, and UnBound. Dear BookExpo attendees, We hope when you read this email that you and your loved ones are safe and healthy. During the past eight months, the impact...

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Morning Coffee – 30 November 2020

Here are a few stories to read this Monday morning. Roland Denzel thinks authors should stop writing about writing.  Is the Freewrite Traveller too rich for your blood? Here’s a DIY alternative which uses an ereader.  While writing about the Simon the Random Penguin merger, The Atlantic inadvertently presents an argument for breaking up Amazon. ...

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Bertelsmann Buys Simon & Schuster from ViacomCBS

The hot news in the publishing world today is that one of the world’s largest media conglomerates just got a little bigger. Bertelsmann, the parent company of Penguin Random House, is buying Simon & Schuster for just over $2 billion USD. Bertelsmann, the international media, services, and education company, is further expanding its global content...

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Audible Makes Tiny Change to Its Execrable Return & Royalty Policy

It seems that if multiple author groups line up against it, Amazon can be forced to make a change to it policies – just not a major change. Audible sent out an email Tuesday morning to authors and publishers who are signed up with ACX. The email informed us that starting 1 January, Audible would pay a royalty on any audiobook which is returned more...

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Basic Kindle Now $59, Oasis & Paperwhite to go on Sale on Cyber Monday

Amazon announced a confusing number of sales today for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Some items are on sale today, while others won’t be going on sale until the 28th. For starters the basic Kindle is on sale today, and so is the Fire HD 10. You can get the basic Kindle for $60, or the Fire HD 10 for $80. You can also find Fire HD 10 accessories and...

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Morning Coffee – 23 November 2020

Here are a few stories to read this Monday morning. Here are 13 of Margaret Atwood’s tips on writing.  Victoria Strauss has an in-depth look at the Audible returns issue.  Why CorpseSpeak persists.  The SFWA has released a legal kit which authors can use to protect their literary estates.  Disney has finally added warnings for the racist content...

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Here’s Why ALLi Downgraded Audible to “Caution”

When I reported a few weeks ago that Audible was actively promoting returns as a benefit of subscribing, I apparently missed the bigger picture. It’s not just that Audible is actively promoting returns, but also that, unlike in the KDP dashboard, Audible is not making it clear to rightsholders just how many audiobooks are being returned. This ongoing...

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E-ink is Beta-Testing Electronic Window Tint (video)

Tinted windows are great – they give you privacy and limit the amount of sunlight which can penetrate. But they are not so great when lighting is bad. Luckily for us, E-ink is working on a solution. Mike Cane just pointed me to a demo video where E-ink shows off their Just Tint technology. That is a cool trick, but I am not sure we’re going to see...

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Disney Reportedly Withholding Royalties From Alan Dean Foster Over Star Wars, Aliens Novels

Disney has replaced Amazon at the top of many people’s shit-lists this week when the SFWA publicly criticized the media giant for not paying royalties to Alan Dean Foster. From Foster’s letter: Dear Mickey, We have a lot in common, you and I.  We share a birthday: November 18.  My dad’s nickname was Mickey.  There’s more. When you purchased Lucasfilm...

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Morning Coffee – 16 November 2020

Here are a few stories to read this Monday morning. European antitrust regulators caught Amazon with their hand in the cookie (data) jar.  Educators in the UK continue to protest the rising cost of ebooks.  Collins dictionary choose “lockdown” as its word of the year.  This is an ironic choice given that many Americans apparently do not know what...

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