One veteran literary agent in New York, Nat Sobel, a partner at Sobel Weber Associates, has been trying to rally publishers to the fight against cheap e-books. In a letter sent to 16 publishing houses last week, he urged them to consider postponing releases of e-books. Warning that e-books could constitute 20% of sales next year, he wrote, "The future of hardcover publishing is at stake. You don't have a lot of time left to save it."

Last week, I read an interesting article in Publishers Weekly about a new e-commerce effort  by Simon & Schuster to sell electronic chapters of books for a few bucks.

The chapters hail from the insanely popular "You" series by Dr. Michael F. Roizen and Dr. Mehmet C. Oz. Individuals can purchase just the chapters they want, instead of the entire book.

I can really see this as a key selling point to certain nonfiction books. Looking at my own bookshelf, I see a ton of nonfiction books that have only a few chapters marked. I don't need the rest of the information in them, but I have to take them.

The downside to ordering just a few e-chapters is that someday, I might need that other information - especially in medical tomes. Also, electronic pages are much easier to lose. Printed pages don't have the same wear-and-tear time as a regular book. I'd need to either keep them in file folders, or a three-prong notebook. If I purchased a variety of e-chapters, then I'd have to invent a new filing system to keep track of them both in print and on the computer. (I'm not trusting enough to believe my Mac will NEVER crash and I won't lose anything, so hardcopies are key.)

Still, I could imagine selling chapters of a book would be a terrific marketing tactic for a business owner who is using a book to develop expert status. For example, if you are a plumber who wrote a DIY manual, some folks may just want the chapter on unclogging a drain, but don't want the rest (until they need it, of course!). It would be cost-effective and would be a great way to track which information readers want the most - and follow up on that with blog posts, or a book entirely on that topic.

What are your thoughts on this new effort? Are certain topics easier to sell as chapters than others?

After a Congressional hearing on the controversial Google Book Settlement, the online giant decided to allow other publishers rights to print orphan works. (How big of them!)

Read more at The Daily Online Examiner.

Google is finally facing some serious challenges to its attempt to monopolize works in digital format. Whether these attempts make a difference in the end game is yet to be seen.

Next week is the deadline to file objections or comments to the Google Book Search Settlement.

Libraries and the Open Books Alliance are increasing efforts to alter and oppose the settlement. Amazon, Yahoo and Microsoft are also objecting to the settlement.

As I've mentioned before, Google is turning into the next Microsoft, a giant entity that wants total control over your Web experience. (Ironic that Microsoft is in on the objections.) This type of monopoly will seriously hurt the publishing industry, and could easily carry Google over into other areas of your life.

Anytime a company wants a monopoly, it is bad news for everyone, and sets a precedent for the future. Google has a terrific idea, but the implementation and the lack of concern for author rights continues to haunt me.

Here are a few updated articles on the settlement:

As Google Settlement Hits Homestretch, Libraries Push for Changes (Publishers Weekly)

Open Books Alliance Calls for Investigation into Google Settlement (Information World Review)

Tech's Heavyweights Put Google Books Deal  in Crosshairs (Wall Street Journal)

Google Book Settlement Site

I've been dying to see the new horror flick, Orphan, only because I haven't seen a really good, scary film in a long, long time.

While doing some research for a client today, I came across an article in the River Front Times of St. Louis, talking about a news release from an author who came out swinging against the movie.

Author Kim Michele Richardson, an orphan herself who penned The Unbreakable Child, an expose' on abuse in a religious orphanage, was incensed by the film's premise. In the news release, the author is quoted as saying:

I find the premise of Warner Bros. film, "Orphan" disheartening, disturbing and I, too, worry about is effects on future adoptions. ...

As a former orphan, I'm qualified to speak on this matter and to say, Orphan is an insult, insensitive and a damaging stereotype movie, which I fear will only harm children without families.

I will be the first person to tell any author to tie their books to current news, but I found this release a little difficult to take.

This is a HORROR film about an evil little girl who terrorizes people. Period. The public is going to see it as another Bad Seed-type film, watch it, hopefully get scared from it and not regret spending $10 on a ticket, and move on. (According to the review at Pop Syndicate, it might be a rental at 99 cents.)

I realize this author had a terrible childhood and suffered horrible abuse in a Catholic orphanage. I recognize and applaud her for sticking for kids who don't have anyone in their corner. But this news release was way out of proportion with a fictional horror film.

Had Warner Bros. distributed a tell-all film about orphans that was pro-orphanages, well then, this news release would be perfect. The level of vitriol in this news release did not fit with a fictional horror film.

Don't believe me? Let's put this in a different light. what if people who own older homes spew anger against Supernatural or Amityville because they use older homes for haunted houses? What if pet owners decided to unit against Stephen King's Cujo or Pet Cemetery?

That said, I grew up with two parents who weren't perfect, but loved me. Was never abused or neglected, so I cannot put myself in the shoes of anyone who lived in an orphanage or suffered abuse as a kid. Would I feel differently otherwise? I don't know. I don't take a lot of things personally because I have a thick skin from years of journalism, but who knows? Maybe I would react the same way. Maybe I would be organizing nationwide protests outside every movie theater where the film was playing.

To someone on the outside, though, this just didn't sit right at all. This movie certainly would not keep me from adopting, if I wanted to. It doesn't make me think less of children in group homes - or to immediately assume they will be the Devil's Spawn if I bring them into my home.

If you are going to tie your books to a news event, think about how you want to pitch it and how your release could be viewed by people from several different sides of society. You might be surprised at the different ways it could be interpretted.

The live audio program is coming to publishers in a partnership between Google, PW and The Association of American Publishers. The details:

Date: July 29, 2009
Begins: 2:00 PM EDT
Length: 60-minutes

Register for the podcast

If you cannot make it on the date of the podcast, no worries. They are archived for a full year, so you will have plenty of time to listen. Try to download it to your iPod for even more convenience. 

{Image is a portion of the registration page linked above}

A Vermont indie bookseller hopes to level the playing field with sites like Amazon with a new Espresso Book Machine.

The machine creates made-to-order titles for readers - while they stand there and wait just a few minutes for a terrific looking paperback novel.

The Boston Herald has a great article about the arrival of the expensive machine - and what it means for publishing.

Be sure to read Market My Novel's post, Books Like Coffee: Ordering Made Easy, for the pros and cons of the machine, plus a demonstration of how it works.

Simon & Schuster is the first publisher to ink a major deal with the popular file sharing site Scribd.

According to Publishers Weekly, S&S will have its own store on Scribed, where it will sell eBooks from authors like Dan Brown and Stephen King.

I think this is a terrific marriage of publishing and new technology - even if it is several years after it should have happened. In fact, I rolled my eyes when I read this quote in Andrew Albanese's story at PublishersWeekly.com:

Such visibility, suggested S&S spokesperson Adam Rothberg, could benefit publishers and authors.

Well, DUH! Publishers have long ignored the growing need for eBook and podio book exposure. One of the major concerns/excuses for ignoring this growing market (and amazing marketing technique) was copyright theft. It was one of my concerns about sites like Scribd, too. However, at Scribd all works can be encoded to stop theft. That is different from many other sites, which don't offer protections to copyright holders. 

Of course, The New York Times reported in May that Random House experienced copyright theft while experimenting with the site, proving that no matter how many controls you have in place, people WILL find ways around them. (Any publisher who joins the Scribd store gets their works in a database for added protection.)

Overall, this is terrific news for authors everywhere - especially those who decide to self publish. Having a company like S&S join Scribd gives it more legitimacy than the image of an "electronic vanity publisher," as it was described by The New York Times. However, it does not mean that copyright concerns immediately vanish. Vanity searches are a necessary evil to protect your work from knowing and unknowing thieves.

Google's monopoly of digitized books is still raising concerns from publishing industry insiders, as well as those watching from the virtual wings.

Most recently, librarians have asked the judge in the Google Book Settlement case to order strict oversight of the program and make sure Google doesn't charge exorbitant fees to access digitized tomes. The New York Times sums up concerns raised by the American Library Association and two other groups:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation - the ACLU of the net - says it is working with authors who oppose the Google deal, which is supported by the Association of American Publishers and Author's Guide.

The found of the Internet Archive, Brewster Kahle, criticized the settlement and the publishing industry's lack of focus for the future. Here are some of Kahle's comments, as reported at InternetNews.com:

“It creates another monopoly,” said Kahle. “It doesn’t make sense for them to be locked up by Google, it’s very screwy.”

Going forward he warned the settlement might “determine the future of books and paid content.”

In response to a question, Kahle, a successful entrepreneur, took pains to say he’s not about making everything free. He thinks the publishing industry needs a new distribution system that would enable the “vending and lending” of online works.

He said he wants to be optimistic a new system will emerge, but so far “fhe book publishing industry has done almost everything it can to kill itself.”

More on the Web:

Google's Plan for Out-of-Print Books is Challenged

Google Blog