Pricing of ebooks set for new upheaval

Pricing of ebooks set for new upheaval
Financial Times
By Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson in New York The publishing industry's business model in the ebook age is on the verge of another upheaval as expectations grow for a partial settlement of price-fixing investigations on both sides of the Atlantic.

'Three Cups of Tea' author settles with Montana authorities
CNN
By the CNN Wire Staff A family photo shows author Greg Mortenson in a house in the Waziristan region of Pakistan. The author "failed to fulfill ... responsibilities" as head of his charity, the state finds (CNN) -- Greg Mortenson, under fire for ...

Sleeping E-Book Giant Google Rolls Over Bookstore Partners
Wired News
By Tim Carmody In the year since Judge Denny Chin invalidated Google's agreement with the Authors' Guild to display and sell digital editions of orphaned works, the towering monolith of search has been a sleeping giant in e-books.

Wired News

Author Greg Mortenson settles lawsuit, will pay charity $1 million
Los Angeles Times (blog)
A lawsuit brought against "Three Cups of Tea" author Greg Mortenson and his charity the Central Asia Institute over its administration was settled Thursday. According to the terms of the agreement, Mortenson will stay with the charity and has three ...

The rise of e-reading, 'Slow-Books Manifesto', Lauren Oliver book
USA TODAY
"The rise of e-books in American culture is part of a larger story about a shift from printed to digital material," reads the report. --Lauren Oliver to write first adult book: The best-selling young adult author of Delirium, Pandemonium and Before I ...

“Three Cups of Tea” author Greg Mortenson to stay with CAI charity
Chicago Sun-Times
“Three Cups of Tea” author Greg Mortenson will remain the face of the charity he co-founded, despite his having to repay $1 million after an investigative report released Thursday concluded he mismanaged the organization and misspent its money.

Bad new for independent bookstores: Is Google becoming "another Amazon"?
Christian Science Monitor
By Husna Haq / April 6, 2012 Google's Google eBooks reseller program – which will end early next year – had been viewed as a way for independent bookstores like Montclair Book Center in Montclair, NJ, to even the playing field by selling e-books ...

Christian Science Monitor

Ohio rabbi's books tied to Holocaust survivors
The Associated Press
Abby Meyer, who works at New York-based Kestenbaum and Company, which specializes in selling Judaic items and sold the books to Kaltmann, said the auction house has sold only a handful of single tractates in its more than 20 years in business.

The Associated Press

'3 Cups of Tea' Author Greg Mortenson Owes His Charity $1M
Reuters
It's certainly costing author Greg Mortenson. The author of the best-selling novel "3 Cups of Tea" must pay back $1 million to the very charity he founded, reports CBS News. After 60 Minutes investigated Mortenson last year, they found that the author ...

Apple preparing DoJ court battle over e-book fixing: report
ZDNet (blog)
By Charlie Osborne | April 6, 2012, 5:55am PDT Summary: Apple is reportedly preparing to take allegations of e-book price fixing to the Department of Justice. Apple will take the allegations that it 'fixed' e-book prices in a bid to undermine Amazon's ...

ZDNet (blog)

One-fifth of US adults read an e-book in the last year
CBS News
Fair-goers try out the textunes eBook reader app on an Apple iPad at the LeipzigBook Fair on March 15, 2012 on the fairgrounds in Leipzig, eastern Germany. (Credit: Getty) (CBS News) More Americans are swapping their hardcover and paperback books in ...

CBS News

Report: Author misused funds
Philadelphia Inquirer
Three Cups of Tea author Greg Mortenson mismanaged the nonprofit organization he cofounded to build schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan and spent millions of dollars of charity money on charter flights, family vacations and personal items, according to ...

Google remainders its independent e-book resales
CNET
Google reps assert that the reseller program hasn't met the needs of readers or booksellers. by Rachel King April 5, 2012 2:47 PM PDT Google is nixing the reseller program that falls within the Google Books platform -- effectively cutting off an ...

Google to drop e-book partners, including Powell's
The Columbian
By Gordon Oliver Google on Thursday informed Powell's Bookstore in Portland and other independent bookstores that it will intends to eliminate a program of selling its electronic books through private booksellers, saying the program “has not gained the ...

"Three Cups of Tea" author to pay $1 million to US charity
Reuters
By Lori Grannis | MISSOULA, Montana (Reuters) - "Three Cups of Tea" author Greg Mortenson has agreed to pay $1 million to compensate his Montana-based charity for using the non-profit to promote and buy copies of his books, a report from the state ...

Author faulted for bungling at charity
Boston Globe
By Matt Volz | AP Central Asia Institute cofounder and author Greg Mortenson in an undated photo with Nowseri schoolchildren in Pakistan. HELENA, Mont. - “Three Cups of Tea'' author Greg Mortenson mismanaged the nonprofit organization he cofounded to ...

Boston Globe

Author lands deal for 'Fifty Shades of Grey' parody
msnbc.com
“The books have an old-school Harlequin feel, with a rich guy sweeping a virgin off her feet,” Shaffer says. “The hero buys her a $14000 first edition of a book before their first date! But it also combines this old-school romance with a newer style ...

msnbc.com

"Three Cups of Tea" author to pay back $1 million
CBS News
(CBS News) For years, Greg Mortenson traveled the country promoting his best-selling book, "Three Cups of Tea," and raised tens of millions of dollars to build schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Now, a 31-page report by the Montana Attorney General ...

Apple Preparing to Defend Price Agreement With Publishers
Bloomberg
Apple, Pearson Plc (PSON)'s Penguin Group, and Macmillan, a unit of Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH, want to protect the so-called agency model that lets publishers -- not vendors --set e-book prices, said the people, who declined to be ...

Bloomberg

Book paints Tigers Woods as full of dichotomies and contrasts
Kansas City Star
By MICHAEL K. BOHN Veteran PGA golf instructor Hank Haney has a new book about Tiger Woods. But it isn't a "tell-all" mainly because Tiger doesn't share all with either his friends or swing coach. That said, the book does provide a rare look behind the ...

'Three Cups of Tea' author to pay $1 million to US charity
Reuters
* Compensation for using non-profit to market his books * Charity's core mission to educate poor Afghans, Pakistanis * Agreement also calls for new board to run the charity (Adds finding on board members, city where charity is based) By Lori Grannis ...

Google to nix e-book sales via independent stores
USA TODAY
(AP) – Google is ending a program that allowed independent booksellers to offer e-books from its online store. Beginning Jan. 31, Google will sell e-books only through Google Play. Beginning Jan. 31, Google will sell e-books only through Google Play.

USA TODAY

Amazon Opens 'eBooks Kindle en Espanol' with 30000 Titles
CIO Today
In all, the Spanish Kindle store has more than 30000 titles, including the exclusive nonfiction work, "El Libro de los Manuales." Amazon on Thursday opened the virtual doors to a new Spanish-language eBook store . Dubbed "eBooks Kindle en Espanol," it ...

CIO Today

'Three Cups' author to repay $1 million
Post-Bulletin
"Three Cups of Tea" author Greg Mortenson will have to repay $1 million to the charity he co-founded after an investigative report released Thursday concluded he mismanaged the organization and misspent its money. A yearlong investigation by the ...

'Three Cups' author Greg Mortenson must pay $1 million to charity
Los Angeles Times
Many of his presentations centered on experiences he wrote about in his book, "Three Cups of Tea," a dramatic chronicle of how he became a humanitarian in Central Asia. The Central Asia Institute's board failed to properly manage the charity for 10 ...

eBooks, eReaders Growing, But Print Still Dominates
Wireless Week
By Andrew Berg Friday, April 6, 2012 The PEW Internet and American Life Project released a report that shows Americans are increasingly reading books on tablets and eReaders. In a February survey, 21 percent of adults said they had read an eBook in the ...

Olympic swimmer Amanda Beard recounts drug abuse, bulimia in book
CBS News
"It was definitely a snowball effect," she said Thursday from New York where she was promoting the book. "It started with my parents' divorce, the pressure I put on myself after the `96 Olympics, not dealing with puberty. All of those things I just ...

CBS News

Pew E-book Survey: 20 Percent of US Is Reading Electronically
Daily Beast
And 28 percent of Americans own at least one device for e-reading, either a tablet or an e-reader. Not only that, but the people who read e-books, many of whom also read printed books, are reading more than ever, even more than people who read the ...

Daily Beast

Shocker: People who read e-books read more -- Engadget
By Brian Heater
Turns out people who read e-books read more books than those don't. That tidbit comes from the number crunchers at Pew. According to a new report titled "The Rise of E-Reading," the e-book readers read an average of 24 books in the past ...
Engadget

Crowdsource: what are good astronomy books for kids? | Bad ...
By Phil Plait
Please leave a comment below, and give the name of the book, the author, and the age you think it fits, and I'll collect them in a little while and repost them all as a compiled list (give a URL if you can, and e-books are good too!). That way, we ...
Bad Astronomy

Google Winding Down E-Book Reselling Program To Focus On Play ...
By Devin Coldewey
The American Booksellers Association sent a letter to its members today announcing that Google was putting an end to its reseller program, which allowed independent bookstores to operate an e-book storefront using Google as the wholesaler. The news was confirmed shortly afterwards by a post on the Inside Google Books blog, saying “it's clear that the reseller program has not met the needs of many readers or booksellers.” The news will be unwelcome to the bookstores that were ...
TechCrunch

Freakonomics » How to Crowd-Fund an Economics Book
By Freakonomics
Eva Vivalt, an economist, is looking for financial backers to fund her book on Kickstarter. ... Thisbook will review the quantitative evidence on the effectiveness of aid programs in a very thorough and rigorous way, using meta-analysis.
Freakonomics

Google abandons indies again - Melville House Books
By Dennis Johnson
In one of the most muddled, disorganized, deceitful and cynical series of policy shifts in recent business history, Google has once again announced that it ending it partnership selling ebookswith independent booksellers — except this time, the company ... Google said on Thursday it would abolish a program through which independent bookstores have been selling e-books, a blow to small booksellers that have benefited from the large and recognizable platform Google provides.
Melville House Books

Google ends e-book sales via independent stores | Ubergizmo
By Edwin Kee
Google will put to an end a program that previously allowed independent booksellers to offer their wares – in this case, e-books, from its online store. This move will come to fruition by the end of January 2013. Google digital [...]
Ubergizmo

This Week In Photography Books – Rineke Dijkstra
By Jonathan Blaustein
That's easy. As soon as you read this sentence, I'll be the first lunatic to ever announce his wife's pregnancy in a book review. It's a girl, in case you were wondering. Due late Summer, we found out on Christmas Day. How's that for symbolism?
A Photo Editor

Greg Mortenson, 'Three Cups Of Tea'' Author, Must Repay Charity ...
By The Huffington Post News Editors
"Three Cups of Tea" author Greg Mortenson will remain the face of the charity he co-founded, despite his having to repay $1 million after an investigative report released Thursday concluded he mismanaged the organization and misspent its ... Mortenson and CAI in 2008 agreed to splitbook promotion costs, and he agreed to contribute the amount he received in royalties from thebooks bought by CAI, but he did not followed through on either agreement, the attorney general found.
The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com

'Three Cups of Tea' author to repay charity $1 mln - Yahoo! News
News: A US author nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for his work building schools in ...Publish your own activity and retain full control. ... about $3.96 million buying Mortenson's books -- largely at full price from online retailers -- to donate them without using his publisher'sdiscount. ... BOOKS-AUTHORS/ MORTENSON ...
news.yahoo.com/three-cups-tea-author-ordered-pay-1-mn-17...

Self-Published Author's Lounge | Advice for fiction writers by self ...
... award-winning story, “The Silver Lining,” available for free on Smashwords and Barnes andNoble. ... I'm an organized writer that lives in an organized mess.
selfpubauthors.com/

'Pocket Kings,' by Ted Heller
New York Times
This may be a good place to mention that Ted Heller is the son of the novelist Joseph Heller,author of “Catch-22.” Dixon (the protagonist, not the Hardy Boys collective) has already published two novels. The first, a dark and, “according to the UK's ...

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