Check out this offer (which I hope is serious, but love even if it isn’t) from the drummer for Nine Inch Nails. We need to think about what the counterparts would be for books. (Not sure I can picture Joyce Carol Oates joining her readers in a sensory deprivation tank, but maybe she’d be ok with the dinner at Sizzler?)
A recent Tweet by Tim O’Reilly pointed me to Scott Wingo’s 5 pillars of Ecommerce. These concepts are crystal clear yet somehow seeing them in list form flicked the it’s-so-obvious-it’s-genius switch in my head:
5 Pillars of Ecommerce:
1. Selection
2. Value
3. Ease of use
4. Trust
5. Merchandising
I highly recommend checking out Wingo’s full analysis in which he explains what is widely known as the “Bezos napkin diagram.”
IndieBound just launched a new app that allows you to find your favorite indie bookstore through Google maps. Now book lovers can plot, down to the exact mile, how far they’re willing to go in search of a good book…
Congratulations to Philippe on winning the Academy Award last night for Best Documentary for his remarkable movie, “Man on Wire.” We’re so honored to be working with him on his next book…
This is a mock up of the cover....not the finished version.
Ok, enough about eBook pricing for the moment. I get it. I hear you. I’m a consumer too. 
Let’s talk about editing and organizing and quotes…..and how much fun I’m having editing my first book.
At HarperStudio we’re just 5 people (plus our interns) — which means that we each do a little bit of everything. Julia’s making serialization deals; Bob’s doing the nitty gritty on the backlist repackages; Sarah’s acquired a book by Carmindy called Crazy, Busy, Beautiful; etc. etc. etc………and Katie just plain does it all.
So it is within this spirit that Bob encouraged me to edit a book co-authored by my son’s study coach and doctor called ORGANIZING THE DISORGANIZED CHILD. It has been such a blast. As soon as we got the manuscript in shape, we sent it out for quotes, and within days la crème de la crème of authors responded with these kind words:
“A superb book! Blessedly brief, pointedly practical, and clear as glass, this book will help any child, parent, or teacher who reads it. Step by step, the authors, who truly know their subject, lead the reader through a method that can’t help but succeed. This book meets an urgent need. I will be referring my patients to it.”
- Edward Hallowell, M.D., co-author of Driven to Distraction and Superparenting for ADD
“Organizing the Disorganized Child is a long overdue manual that strives to make life easier on families with children with ADHD. Unlike other books that offer a menu of one-size-fits-all strategies, this book digs deeper and helps parents to understand the root causes of their particular child’s disorganization…This book is a MUST HAVE for all parents of children with or without ADHD!”
“Organizing the Disorganized Child is a breath of fresh air. Straightforward, practical, and most important, providing strategies and ideas that any parent – even the disorganized – can easily implement. Rather than wait till some children struggle I suggest that Organizing the Disorganized Child be essential reading for parents of all entering first graders.”
- Sam Goldstein, Ph.D., Co-author of Raising a Self-disciplined Child
The jacket is coming along beautifully thanks to our fabulous art director Mary Schuck; the interior design feels so clean and organized (thank you Leah); we’ve sent out letters to Staples, Office Max, etc. to try to get the book sold with the school supplies, and I’ve had had tons of queries from friends and colleagues asking if they can have an early look at the manuscript.
I don’t want to jinx us……but feels like this is going really well!
Sara Nelson, former Editor in Chief of Publishers Weekly came by for lunch today. In this video she’s talking about the Kindle, ebook pricing, and the biggest mistakes publishers make.
Would you pay a tenth of a cent to read Frank Rich?
And how would you feel about having one micropayment system track your every move online? The idea that a functional micropayment system could somehow defibrillate the newspaper industry and solve “the free problem” is nothing new (enormous logistical challenges as well as questions about privacy have prevented anyone from making it work thus far). But yesterday’s roundtable discussion on the Freakonomics blog got the wheels turning in my mind. Here were some of my favorite responses:
“News is not like an iTunes song; it’s perishable.” – Marshall W. Van Alstyne
“It’s an unavoidable relationship: for good information to flow from journalists to readers, proportional revenue must flow the other way.” – William Baker
“Put another way, the fantasy that small payments will save publishers as they move online is really a fantasy that monopoly pricing power can be re-established over we users. Invoking the magic word “micropayments” is thus grabbing the wrong end of the stick; if online publishers had that kind of pricing power, micropayments wouldn’t be necessary. And since they don’t have that pricing power, micropayments won’t provide it.” – Clay Shirkey
- Julia
There seems to be a controversy brewing in the UK over Hodder’s decision to give Waterstone’s the exclusive ability to sell Glen David Gold’s new novel, Sunnyside, in hardcover this July, while all the other retailers will have to wait until October to sell the book in paperback. Exclusives have been done in the American market for some time, with unique editions created for some large accounts. But this seems to be pushing the envelope.
Can anyone think of other comparable examples?
Over at HarperPerennial Cal Morgan has started a blog called Fifty-Two Stories, publishing one short story per week for an entire year. If you subscribe you’ll receive a short story every Sunday in your web feed. Most will be new stories, but they’ll include some classics too.
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