Writer Unboxed

News and views from around the intertubes:

Book Business has published a great article on the top 50 women in the book publishing industry and how they’ve become the driving force in today’s market.

From multimillion-dollar acquisitions to multimillion-dollar best-sellers, powerful women stand at every pivotal, decision-making point in the book publishing process. Book Business’ first annual “50 Top Women in Book Publishing” feature recognizes and honors some of these industry leaders who affect and transform how publishing companies do business, and what—and how—consumers read.

There are too many gems in the massive article, but it’s well worth reading to give insights into what editors are thinking when a project comes across their desks.

Amazon’s Kindle reader has some competition now. The Cool-er is the next wave of e-book reader, with some notable upgrades from Kindle (and a cheaper price):

Above all, the Cool-er’s books are far less restrictively protected than Amazon’s or Sony’s. For starters, you can read one on your Mac or PC. According to Interead, starting this fall, you’ll be able to sell books you’ve written on Coolerbooks.com; you’ll keep 50 percent of each sale.

And most intriguingly of all, you can share a Cool-er book you’ve bought with four other people. Think family, buddies or book club.

That’s a huge deal. It takes a step toward addressing what may be the biggest remaining e-book gotcha: you’re stuck with your books forever. On the Kindle, for example, once you’ve finished reading a book, you can’t pass it on, sell it or even donate it to a library.

But as an iTouch enthusiast, I’m even more excited about the prospect of books being downloaded as an app right to my “baby”.

The Random House Group today announced the launch of new ebook reader applications available on the Apple App Store. The apps have been developed in partnership with Verlagsgruppe Random House in Germany and allow iPhone and iPod touch users to download digital editions of current bestselling titles.

The launch list includes: 8th Confession by James Patterson, Nothing to Lose by Lee Child and Adventures on the High Teas by Stuart Maconie. More titles from Jacqueline Wilson, Ben Elton, Alastair Campbell, Chris Ryan and Richard Branson will be released in the next few months.

“This is the first time that a major UK publisher has made mass-market books available via the Apple App Store,” said Jonathan Davis, digital publisher, Random House Group Digital. “The iPhone and iPod touch are fantastic convergence devices and we’re delighted customers can now enjoy digital versions of some of our bestselling books on a device which fits neatly in their pocket.”

This will be where the rubber meets the road, imo. When this becomes available in the U.S., look out.

On that note, Borders continues to struggle:

Borders reported Tuesday that its quarterly loss widened on weak sales. While cost-cuts have helped soften the blow to the bottom line, S&P analyst Michael Souers noted that a 13.5 percent same-store sales decline is indicative of struggles book retailers are facing as well as the continued weak macroenvironment.

Hang in there, Borders! I have faith.

ETA: Therese sent me the link to this weekend’s BookExpo of America. It’s worth exploring the website to find out where the buzz and trends are in publishing (hint: The Last Will of Moira Leahy by Therese Walsh by Random House’s Shaye Areheart imprint! SQUEE!~).

Kathleen Bolton is co-founder of Writer Unboxed. She has written two novels under the pseudonym Cassidy Calloway: Confessions of a First Daughter, and Secrets of a First Daughter--both books in a YA series about the misadventures of the U.S. President's teen-aged daughter, published by HarperCollins.

Kathleen Bolton

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