Making It Up With a Publishing Round Up

I've been a little out of the loop lately, dear readers--my apologies. With vacation and the Thanksgiving holiday (and an intense work week playing catch up!), I have been a bit preoccupied and lax about posting. I am truly sorry--I know how much you must miss me. ;)

But boy, oh, boy, are there things going on in this crazy publishing biz!

Allow me to share with you some of my personal "favorite" highlights in a quick round-up:


Best of 2012 Lists Posted
That's right. It's that time of year again. The New York Times, Kirkus, and Slate have all posted their big lists of most notable/best books of 2012. As per usual, I only have ever even heard of a few of them, and I  haven't read any of them. Sometimes I wonder where they come up with most of these things...or maybe I am just not as "in the know" as I should be.

Facebook Launching New Social Reading Site
Yup. Another Goodreads-style website is on its way. I received notification from the folks over at Facebook about Riffle, which Forbes magazine describes as "a new kind of Pintrest", and have been invited as an early member (I also can pass along invites to others, if anyone is interested). I've signed up and am awaiting my login information--a review will be forthcoming!



HOBBIT Film Producers Being Sued
The J.R.R. Tolkien estate isn't letting HOBBIT producers off easy for what they claim is a breach of merchandising contracts. The estate wants $80 million to make up for it. As the Hollywood Reporter tells us, "The crux of the suit is the estate's contention that a decades-old rights agreement entitles the studio to create only "tangible" merchandise based on the books, not an "online slot machine" or other digital exploitations that the estate calls highly offensive."



High Fidelity Author Writing Script for Wild Adaptation
Reese Witherspoon's production company, Pacific Standard, is set to adapt Wild, Cheryl Strayed's memoir about her solo 1100-mile trek through California and Oregon to Washington State. Bestselling author Nick Hornby has signed on to write the screenplay. I, myself, hadn't heard of the memoir before, and quite frankly, I'm not seeing the film adaptation potential here. Seems to me like the makings of a slowly paced, somewhat boring flick, but I guess we'll see what the talented Horby comes up with.



E.L. James Given High Publishing Honor
Every year, Publishers Weekly names a "publishing person of the year." Past winners have been the likes of Penguin CEO David Shanks, Barnes and Noble chairman Len Riggio, and Google settlement "architect" Richard Sarnoff. But this year? This year's winner comes as a shocker to myself and other members of the industry: Fifty Shades of Grey author E.L. James. Bad choices, PW, bad choices.

A Twitterific Short Story...Maybe?

When I first joined Twitter I loved reading people's little 140-character stories. I followed a bunch of people who actually made the goal of writing them. (Naturally, now that I'm thinking about it, I can't remember any of their handles anymore.) It was a quick, fun little burst of creativity for the day.

But even so, the news that The New Yorker will be "publishing" Jennifer Egan's newest original short story "tweet-by-tweet" doesn't sound super appealing to me. Okay, that's a lie. I'm not actually interested in it at all. 10 tweets at 140 characters doesn't seem all that exciting, especially when they come only one a day and I will likely have forgotten the previous day's tweet.

But, alas, The New Yorker--and I'm sure many others--disagree. Here's the scoop from the New York Times:

When the novelist Jennifer Egan submitted her latest short story to The New Yorker, she hinted to Deborah Treisman, the fiction editor, that there was a catch. It soon became evident: Ms. Egan had written an entire work of fiction in 140 character bits, to be first posted on Twitter and then published in the magazine.

“I had a sense it could work for a spy story,” Ms. Egan said this week while sitting in Ms. Treisman’s office.
Ms. Treisman was receptive to the idea, so much so that this week the New Yorker will begin publishing the story, “Black Box,” in segments on Twitter. Starting Thursday night, the New Yorker’s Twitter fiction handle, @NYerFiction, will post a new tweet of text from Ms. Egan’s 8,500 word story every minute between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. The tweets will continue for 10 straight nights. Readers can find a summary of the text posted on the magazine’s Web site at 9 p.m. each evening.

The article, built around a character in her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “A Visit From the Goon Squad,” will appear in the magazine’s first science fiction issue, which comes out on May 29th.

While many writers have used social media to promote their work, Ms. Egan was especially interested in Twitter. She said she wanted to explore writing something serialized because that’s how many people watch television programs today.

The story is a running scroll of a spy keeping a log of her current mission. Ms. Egan said that when she was writing, she struggled not to make the language sound “gimmicky” or “cartoonish.”

“I’m just interested in serialization in fiction,” said Ms. Egan. “I’m fascinated by it. I love the 19th-century novels. I’m interested in ways to bring that back to fiction.”

Ms. Egan said that she is not entirely comfortable posting tweets. She marvels that she has nearly 3,000 followers when she has only posted four tweets, including one apologizing for being spammed. She said she feels comfortable posting to her Web site but that her posts on Twitter didn’t work.

“I felt tongue tied. It seemed phony,” said Ms. Egan. “I felt really self-conscious.”

But Ms. Egan said that after plugging so many lines of text into Twitter to make sure they were 140 characters or less, she said she felt less fearful.

Since the story’s text as written for Twitter didn’t look right in the standard New Yorker format, the magazine is using a different font called Neutra Face. The creative director, Wyatt Mitchell, said it had never been used before in the body of the magazine.

As New Yorker editors wait to see the response from readers, Ms. Egan notes the story has already lured one new follower to Twitter. “My mom is joining,” she said.

See the original post HERE

Facebook Sues Educators Over the Word "Book"

"What's in a name? A rose by any other word would smell as sweet?"

At least that's what Shakespeare's Juliet (of Romeo and Juliet, that is) thought. The creators of Facebook think otherwise.

It seems the ever-growing Fbook Inc. is claiming that the "Book" in Facebook" is theirs and theirs alone. According to Wired, a lawsuit has been enacted by the social networking site against the site Teachbook, a similar site for educators and school administrators:

Facebook has sued a little-known website for educators called Teachbook, claiming Facebook literally owns the “book” when it comes to naming social networking sites.

“Misappropriating the distinctive book portion of Facebook’s trademark, defendant has created its own competing online networking community in a blatant attempt to become a Facebook for teachers,” (.pdf) according to a filing in San Francisco federal court.

Facebook, with some 500 million users, is policing its trademark in a bid to prevent others from capitalizing on its famous name or diluting its value.

Facebook is not alone in pursuing trademark actions to protect household-name recognition.

Facebook’s lawsuit follows recent threatened litigation by Best Buy against a Wisconsin priest who outfitted a Volkswagen beetle to look like Best Buy’s “Geek Squad” vehicle. The priest had painted “God Squad” on the beetle, but has since agreed to remove it.

Facebook’s lawsuit Wednesday seeks unspecified damages and demands a judge order Teachbook, of Northbrook, Illinois, to immediately cease using “book” in its name.

This begs the obvious question: Would Facebook sue a social-networking site for priests named Goodbook? Or a librarian-networking site named Librarybook?

Barry Schnitt, a Facebook spokesman, pointed out that “we have no complaint against Kelly Blue Book or Green Apple Books or others.”

“However, there is already a well known online network of people with ‘book’ in the brand name. Of course the Teachbook folks are free to create an online network for teachers or whomever, and we wish them well in that endeavor,” he said in an e-mail. “What they are not free to do is trade on our name or dilute our brand while doing so.”

Teachbook declined immediate comment.

It bills itself as a “professional community for teachers” where they are encouraged to share lesson plans and instructional videos, and to manage “communications with parents and students.”

No hearing date has been set.

See the full article HERE

Now, I don't know about you, but this seems a tad extreme to me. We all know what Facebook is. Raise your hand if you'd heard of Teachbook and actually confused it with Facebook? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

I didn't think so. The word "Book" is not up for grabs. Yes, Facebook was the first site--that I know of, at least--to coin that type of naming convention, but these things happen all the time. People are always trying to capitalize on others' successes. It's the way the cookie crumbles. Besides, it's not reducing Facebook's popularity or usage levels. It's an entirely different audience for an entirely different purpose. So, who really cares?

I am curious to see, however, just what happens with this debacle. Facebook as a corporation has a lot of power, whether we want to admit it or not. Could they actually force all other networking sites from using the word "book" if there's no space between it and the previous word in their name? Should they?

What do YOU think?