News

This is interesting, and perhaps further evidence that Borders is in greater financial straits than Barnes & Noble. While Barnes & Noble’s self-publishing platform is free, like Amazon’s DTP, Borders is entering this arena, but charging for it.  Via Publisher’s Weekly:

Borders will offer two basic levels of service for the Get Published program: an $89.99 basic package that gives the user a ISBN and makes the e-book available to all major e-book retailers; and a $199.99 advance package, which gives the user the full e-Pub file for their own use. Authors can set their own prices within the

Michael N. Marcus has a great field report from the Self-Publishing Book Expo this past weekend in NYC.

Observations, in no particular order:

• There were lots of people there, right from the opening at 10 a.m. It was obvious that Expo impresarios Diane Mancher and Karen Mender were correct in assessing the need for such an event, and they made the right decision in making the exhibit floor a freebie for all attendees. Last year nothing was free. The panel sessions I visited were well-attended, with an alert audience asking important questions and getting good answers from knowledgeable and experienced

Barnes and Noble’s new self-publishing platform, Pubit, is now live. To put it simply, it’s Barnes& Noble’s version of Amazon’s DTP platform, and it has very similar terms:

Books released through Pubit! can be priced as low as 99¢ and as high as $199.99, but there’s definitely a sweet spot where Barnes and Noble encourages publishers to list their e-books. That spot is between $2.99 and $9.99, where publishers take 65% of the money collected. Titles priced less than $2.98, and more than $10.00 only earn publishers 40% of the list price.

So authors can earn somewhat less […]

Via Troubador Publishing comes this press release:

A fantastic new self-publishing resource for all authors that focuses on the two areas of self-publishing that self-help books tend to neglect: it asks the question ‘why are you self-publishing?’ and provides an in-depth analysis of the many different self-publishing services on the UK and Irish market.

‘To Self-Publish or Not to Self-Publish’ not only prompts the author to ask the million dollar question – Why do I want to self-publish? – it takes the author carefully through the process of reasoning, and the realities of self-publishing, to help them find the best

Via a press release from Wattpad:

Wattpad, the world’s most popular eBook community, and Shelf Unbound indie book review magazine announce the launch of the Wattpad + Shelf Unbound Writing Competition for self‐published authors. The competition is open to any self‐published writer who has an active Wattpad account (go to www.wattpad.com/contests for further details). The winner, as selected by Shelf Unbound editors, will have their work published and promoted on Wattpad and featured in an upcoming issue of Shelf Unbound. Entries may be submitted through January 31, 2011.

“Shelf Unbound magazine features the best of small press,

Holy moly. Recently I wrote a post called Self-Publishing is the Future of Everything about how print on demand is going to be a major part of the future. Someone joked on Twitter, “Even brain surgery?” My half-joking reply was that in the future you’ll plug into the neural internet and brain surgeons will work from a distance. That’s a sci-fi concept, but we’re increasingly entering a sci-fi world. Just watch this video – it’s an incredible example of how print on demand via something that is first designed on a computer will be changing our world.

From the New […]

Amazingly interesting move, reported in the Wall Street Journal:

In a significant defection for the book industry, best-selling marketing author Seth Godin is ditching his traditional publisher, Portfolio, after a string of books and plans to sell his future works directly to his fans.

The author of about a dozen books including “Purple Cow” said he now has so many direct customer relationships, largely via his blog, that he no longer needs a traditional publisher. Mr. Godin plans to release subsequent titles himself in electronic books, via print-on-demand or in such formats as audiobooks, apps, small digital files called PDFs

Publishers Weekly has introduced an intriguing new program called PW Select that will review self-published books.  They couch it in very positive terms:

We are returning to our earliest roots. PW dates to 1872, when it was first known as Trade Circular Weekly and listed all titles published that week in what was then a nascent industry. We have decided to embrace the self-publishing phenomenon in a similar spirit. Call it what you will—self-publishing, DIY, POD, author-financed, relationship publishing, or vanity fare. They are books and that is what PW cares about. And we aim to inform the trade.