Flurry, a company that provides analytics to mobile phone application developers, found that e-book usage on smartphones increased 300% between April and July 2009. In September, for the first time, more book apps were released to the Apple iTunes store than games. And in October, one of every five new iPhone apps was a book. “The sharp rise in e-book activity on the iPhone indicates that Apple is positioned take market share from the Amazon Kindle as it did from the Nintendo DS [for video games],” Flurry concluded.

And while reading on mobile phones is often perceived as being a more popular activity in foreign countries like Japan than in the United States, a study by e-book application developer Wattpad reported that, in October, the United States surpassed Indonesia as the country with the highest mobile phone ebook consumption in the world. Wattpad attributes the increase to the popularity of the iPhone.Earlier this year, e-book publisher and distributor Smashwords found that its most popular downloaded file format was ePub. “This was before any e-reader companies were really promoting ePub,” says CEO Mark Coker. “The primary consumer of those ePub files was [Lexcycle’s iPhone e-reading app] Stanza.” While much of the attention around ebooks is focused on standalone devices, “I think the mobile phone piece of this is more interesting,” says Coker. “Stanza is at over 2.5 million downloads of their e-reader app. That single company probably has more readers than most of the other e-reading devices combined. Indigo’s Shortcovers [the mobile phone e-book store that recently partnered with Smashwords] has over 1 million downloads. When you look ahead over the next two to three years, it’s likely that we will have hundreds of millions, if not billions, of entry-level mobile phones that are ebook-ready. From a platform perspective, that represents a huge market for publishers, a market where the consumer already owns the device they need to consume your book.”

“By 2010, there are going to be 1 billion web-enabled cell phones,” says Maja Thomas, SVP Digital and Audio Publishing at Hachette. “There are only about 3 million standalone e-ink devices between Sony and Kindle and all the others.” In other words, this is an area publishers need to get into fast.

“It’s been nearly a year since we launched our very first mobile app, which was an app version of David Pogue’s iPhone: The Missing Manual,” says Andrew Savikas, VP of Digital Initiatives at O’Reilly. “The success of that first app, which outsold the print version from the time it launched last December until we published a new edition six months later, told us we needed to pay closer attention to mobile as a market for books.” Since then, O’Reilly has published over 400 iPhone apps, most of which are e-book versions of their books. “It’s interesting to see which ones perform particularly well on the platform,” says Savikas. “We have two camera guides for popular high-end digital cameras that are selling very well as iPhone apps, even though they haven’t been strong performers in print.” In development, “we’re certainly looking to use the kind of features that make these devices so great—things like geo-location and an always-on web connection.” Though Savikas couldn’t reveal how many apps O’Reilly has sold, he said that many of the company’s titles sell more copies as apps than as printed books and that in terms of revenue, “the iPhone is our most important digital channel after our own website and Safari Books Online.”

Lonely Planet’s Innovation Ecosystem Manager, Matthew Cashmore, agrees: “Sales of our mobile apps are really, really strong,” he says. “We see our apps in the top 10 on the iTunes store frequently.” The company recently created a new app for Android devices called “Lonely Planet Compass,” an “augmented reality travel guide.” “Imagine being able to stand in the middle of Union Square in San Francisco and look through your phone’s camera screen and see actual Lonely Planet reviews overlaid on the real world,” he says. Recently, the company held a “Hack Day” at its Melbourne, Australia headquarters. Over 50 developers from around Australia spent 24 hours using Lonely Planet data to build apps, including an app that created a custom itinerary based on a user’s answer to a few questions. See the winners here.

As consumers explore reading on their mobile phones—Brent Lewis, VP Digital and Internet at Harlequin, sees them doing “a lot of experimentation and sampling”—there is also a learning curve for publishers as they expand into the smartphone market.

“Everything about [developing a mobile content program] was a challenge,” says Thomas. “Conceiving of how it was going to be done, finding the partners, understanding the business model, understanding how to work with Apple, negotiating with agents for grant of rights that weren’t included on the original contract. If you want to do an enhanced eBook, you have to spend the time to do the enhancements. It’s very creative and it’s very fun, but it’s also very labor-intensive.” Hachette creates both promotional apps and apps for sale. All of its titles are available on the iPhone through ScrollMotion and via Kindle’s iPhone app. In addition, there are enhanced e-books for some titles, like Daniel X’s Maximum Ride, as well as free apps created by the marketing department to promote individual titles or series. Thomas says apps aimed at the teen market have been particularly successful, including the free apps Hachette created for its Poppy series (which allow readers to read the books’ first chapters for free)—and, of course, “Twilight has done wonderfully well on this platform.”

In addition to mobile publishing, HarperCollins is experimenting with mobile marketing. Susan Katz, President and Publisher of HarperCollins Children’s, said the division’s first marketing application for the iPhone is a free app featuring animated flash video excerpts from Shel Silverstein’s bestselling books. “We were the first publisher to put a Quick Reponse code [2D barcode] on our books and promotional materials, which garnered a lot of publicity,” Katz says. “For the Lauren Conrad book L.A. Candy, readers could connect directly to the L.A. Candy mobi site and watch a video of Lauren, read an excerpt, send it to a friend, and buy a book.” The company is rolling out this type of campaign for other teen properties as well and will launch a mobile version of harperteen.com in January.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is also pushing children’s and YA apps, says David Langevin, VP of Digital Business Development: “This is where technology and design can really come alive.” HMH has a $9.99 Curious George Dictionary app and will soon release apps for other Curious George titles and The Polar Express. “Revenues are still quite modest, but we’ve done incredibly well in the reference category,” Langevin says. “Internationally, we’ve already had great success in Japan with our American Heritage dictionary and related reference titles. They’ve been selling as English-learning products on the major carrier networks, like DoCoMo, since 2003. This has made, and continues to generate, real money.”

The most exciting mobile phone opportunities for publishers may be abroad. Coker says Shortcovers designed its retail operation to respect the rights of international publishers, and notes that in developing countries mobile phones are spreading literacy. “These devices provide people with access to books, many of which are free,” he says. “The potential to leverage the digital delivery of books over cell phones, to expand knowledge and propagate culture, is very exciting.”

“This is a rich new medium that demands creativity and experimentation,” says Savikas. “These devices can see, hear, speak, and respond to touch, they know where they are in the world, and they’re connected to the two-thirds of the world’s population that has a mobile phone.” One of the best things about mobile markets like the App Store is that O’Reilly “doesn’t have to do anything extra to reach dozens of countries that have little or no access to our printed products. Well over half of the sales of our iPhone apps come from outside the U.S. . . . Some forecasts suggest that by the end of next year, more people will access the internet via mobile devices than fixed broadband. We’re in the early stages of a new phase in technology, communication, and connection—one that will have a truly global impact.”

There are so many changes to report this month that we are highlighting only some of the moves and, where available, contact information. Rebecca (Becky) Saletan has been appointed Editorial Director of Riverhead, reporting to Publisher Geoff Kloske. She was most recently SVP and Publisher of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Her appointment is effective March 2; meanwhile, she is reachable at rebecca dot saletan at earthlink dot net.

Jon Anderson, President and Publisher of Running Press, has joined Simon & Schuster as EVP and Publisher of S&S Children’s Publishing, reporting to S&S CEO Carolyn Reidy.

There have been ongoing reorganizations at Random House, Knopf, and Crown. Janice Goldklang, Publisher of Pantheon, was let go after 30 years and may be reached at janicegoldklang at gmail dot com. Jack Perry was laid off from Random, where he was Director of Sales Marketing, and may be reached at jackperry38 at hotmail dot com. According to the New York Observer, four editors were also laid off: Random House’s Modern Library editor Judy Sternlight, Villard’s Bruce Tracy, Ballantine’s West Coast–based Anika Streitfeld, and Liz Scheier. Longtime Bantam Dell Business Manager John de Beaumont and Paul Kozlowski, former VP Director Sales Marketing Random Adult, have left and Paul may be reached at pekoz at mac dot com. Judy Pray has left Clarkson Potter after one year and can be reached at jpray24 at gmail dot com. She was previously with Black Dog & Leventhal. Meanwhile, Sharon Swados, who was VP Director of Sub Rights at Bantam Dell and was laid off in December, may be reached at szswados at yahoo dot com.

Joe Monti, former Director of Paperbacks at Hachette, has left the company. He may be reached at [e-mail info at publishingtrends dot com for number].

Steve Black has left Oxmoor House’s New York office, where he was Director of Sales. He joined Oxmoor in June 2008.

Editor-in-Chief Sara Nelson has been laid off from Publishers Weekly and may be reached at snwriter at aol dot com or [e-mail info at publishingtrends dot com for number]. Executive Editor Daisy Maryles has also left and may be reached at daisymaryles at yahoo dot com. Bookselling editor Kevin Howell and Director of Business Development Rachel Dicker are also departing. School Library Journal editor-in-chief Brian Kenney was named to the new position of Editorial Director for the group, comprising SLJ, Library Journal, and PW.

Nicole Dewey has been named Director of Publicity at Holt. She was Associate Director of Publicity at
Doubleday and replaces Claire McKinney, who left in December.

Karyn Gerhard has joined Penguin as Senior Acquisitions Editor for the Alpha imprint, formerly a division of Pearson Education. She was at Bulfinch. Meanwhile, Vanessa Mobley, Senior Editor at the Penguin Press, has left the company. She may be reached at vanessamobley at gmail dot com.

Barnes & Noble terminated about 100 people, including Steve Magnusson and Editorial Director of Union Square Press Philip Turner, who may be reached at philipsturner at gmail dot com or [e-mail info at publishingtrends dot com for number]. Meanwhile, BarnesandNoble.com, which has been operating without a CEO since Marie Toulantis left in August, has hired a President, Bill Lynch. From 2004 to 2008, he was CEO and co-founder of gifts.com.

At Chronicle, Debra Lande, Business Development Director, has been laid off. She may be reached at landedebra at gmail dot com.

At Workman, Glenn D’Agnes has been named Chief Administrative Officer. He was COO of HarperCollins. Melissa Possick has been named Marketing Director. Amy Corley has moved back to Artisan as Publicity Director.

Angus Killick, who was School and Library Marketing Director at Disney Publishing Worldwide, has joined Macmillan’s Kingfisher as Associate Publisher, a new position, reporting to UK Publishing Director Martina Challis. Killick takes control of all US publishing, marketing, and sales and is based in New York.

Vivian Chum has joined Prospect Agency as an agent.

Lonely Planet has appointed Matthew Goldberg as CEO as of March, reporting to BBC Worldwide Managing Director of Global Brands Marcus Arthur and based in Melbourne, Australia. He was SVP, Digital Strategy & Ops at Dow Jones, where he led business operations at the Wall Street Journal Digital Network.

Steven Sayre has resigned from Ingram. He has joined medical publisher IARS in San Francisco to run its print/online content programs.

Lindley Boegehold has joined Abrams as Director of Custom, Proprietary, and Calendar Publishing. She has been consulting at Abrams, following her departure from Random Media.

Shardul Kothari has left HMH Publishing, where he was VP, Sales in the International Division. He may be reached at shardul at netvigator dot com.

PROMOTIONS AND INTERNAL CHANGES

Wendy Sheanin has been promoted to Director of Marketing, Adult at S&S.

John R. Ingram, Chairman of the Ingram Content companies, announced that James Gray has been named Chief Strategy Officer for the Content Group. Gray was most recently the President and CEO of Ingram Digital. Mike Lovett, the former CEO of Ingram Book Group and most recently SVP of Ingram Digital, is the new CEO of Ingram Digital.

Sterling has promoted Sharmilla Sinanan to the newly created position of Senior Manager, Marketing Services (formerly the ad/promo department). Simone Gibbs was promoted to the position of Marketing Coordinator.

At Trident Media Group, Alanna Ramirez has been promoted to agent. She was audio rights agent and special assistant to Robert Gottlieb. Elizabeth Kellogg has been promoted to audio rights agent.

Cindy Eagan has been named Executive Editorial Director for the Poppy imprint at Little, Brown Children’s.

Christina Amini and Steve Mockus have both been named Senior Editor at Chronicle.

DULY NOTED

comScore reported that the total global Internet audience (age 15 and older, from home and work computers) surpassed one billion visitors in December 2008. The Asia-Pacific region accounted for the highest share of global Internet users, at 41%, followed by Europe (28% share), North America (18%), Latin America (7%), and the Middle East and Africa (5%). China represented the largest online audience from one country, with 180 million Internet users, representing nearly 18% of the total worldwide Internet audience.

Booksonline, parent company to over 20 of North America’s leading book clubs including Book-of-the-Month Club, Black Expressions, The Good Cook, and Mystery Guild, has dropped the controversial “Negative Option” method from its business practice. On January 7, all book clubs belonging to the Booksonline family switched to the new operational policy.

IN MEMORIAM

Arcade Publishing Founder and Publisher Dick Seaver’s memorial service will take place Thursday, February 12, at 5 PM at All Souls Unitarian Church (1157 Lexington Ave., between 79th and 80th Sts).

A memorial service for critic, editor, and novelist John Leonard will be held on Monday, March 2 at 6 PM at Landmark on the Park (160 Central Park West). Along with family members, Gloria Steinem, Toni Morrison, and Victor Navasky are among the participants.

Part One: Picking, Mixing, and Hitting the Road

Savvy travelers long ago discovered the benefits of chunking content. Always mindful of excess weight, an enterprising backpacker will rip out the 200 surplus hotel reviews in a guidebook once she finds a place to stay, lightening her load by a pound or so. It’s instant self-custom-publishing, if you will. These days, equally enterprising travel publishers are eager to do the chunking for you. They’re ready to help slice, dice, and compile exactly the resources you need, digitally of course.

“If you want to travel to certain cities along the Maya route in South America,” said Greg Benchwick, commissioning editor at Lonely Planet, “you shouldn’t need to buy an entire guidebook for each country.” This is the theory behind Pick & Mix, a new program to be launched in the next few months. As the name suggests, a traveler can browse the contents of Lonely Planet titles online and select relevant chapters. Then, Lonely Planet compiles them into a PDF purchasable and downloadable by the user. Another Pick & Mix option comes with a little help from travel experts. Available through POD, this one will allow travelers to choose specific route guides created by Lonely Planet. So, if you want to travel like the Mayans and then hop over for a float down the Amazon, you’ll only need to carry a slim book and not 900 pages on all of South America.

Though “DK Travel” doesn’t have quite the ring to it as Pick & Mix, it preempted Lonely Planet earlier this year when it launched its own traveler-created guides. Incorporating digital elements that make other publishers drool—user-generated content, ads, downloads, POD—DK Travel allows even the fussiest travelers to tailor a guide suited exactly to their needs. Hoping to be the “MySpace for the travel community” according to a press release, travel.dk.com lets users scroll through hundreds of specific attractions, museums, restaurants, and hotels and cherry-pick the most appealing. This works especially well for someone with a passion, for example, buffet dining in Las Vegas. Who wants to waste time on a lackluster chicken selection? If you’re lucky, another DK Traveler has already made the buffet rounds and rated them in the “shared guides” section of the site. For 2,50 pounds sterling, DK will organize your jumbled picks into a streamlined guidebook complete with directions and maps in the back. You can even add your own title, comments, and picture on the cover. Right now it’s available as a PDF, but by late summer, a POD option will be available in the UK and US.

A Guide As Mobile As You (And Your Cell Phone) Are

The Pick & Mix model isn’t the only way publishers are getting into travelers’ pockets. “When you leave the house in the morning, what do you make sure you have?” asked Rob Flyn, VP and GM of What’s on When, kicking off a panel called “Travel Publishing: How Digitization is Affecting the Industry” at the London Book Fair last month. “Your keys, your wallet, and, of course, your mobile.” Reminding the audience that they should think of themselves as being in the information and not the book business, he argued that the last item and other digital devices are the future of travel guides. “The ‘nirvana’ of online travel guides is a service that can be customized to suit the needs of individual travelers (for example, vegetarian, on a budget, sporty, jazz lovers, etc.), that can be updated as conditions change on the ground, and that has the ability to offer several ‘voices’—the author as well as other travelers/reviewers and rich media—photos, video and the like.” Through licensing deals with major online booking sites like Travelocity and Hilton, What’s on When is helping reach that nirvana.

In the UK, one of the largest travel publishers, the AA, is launching the Smart Travel Guide this July, a memory card that allows travelers to use their Smartphones (3G-enabled phones) to search for restaurants, hotels, sights, attractions, and directions. Appropriately, the London guide will come first. The AA plans on launching 12 more destinations (major European cities plus New York) by mid 2008. With a price point of 24,99 pounds sterling it will be sold in a blister pack at regular retail outlets.

Once again, Penguin can say they’ve been there, done that. In early April, Rough Guides Mobile was launched through a partnership with Creativity Software Ltd, Motorola, and ViaMichelin. Every Motorola handset sold in Europe now comes equipped with the Rough Guides Mobile application, providing information on more than 15,000 points of interest in 200 cities throughout 33 European countries, all through drill down maps.

According to Katy Ball of Rough Guides in the U.S., the partnership with Motorola won’t be happening stateside. It could be that Americans aren’t ready or don’t want a program like this. The closest equivalent to the downloadable-to-PDA guidebook, iFodor’s, fizzled out several years ago. “At times technology is ahead of where consumers are and companies are pouring money into initiatives that consumers aren’t ready for,” said Tim Jarrell, VP and Publisher of Fodor’s. Instead, Fodor’s is focusing on its digital strengths, re-launching its website which already gets 1.5 million unique visitors a month and continuing to explore licensing deals. “At the moment, Fodor’s is interested in initiatives that make an impact in the short-term rather than the long-term.”

Digital initiatives at National Geographic draw on all the company’s travel strengths from magazines to books to tours to its newsdesk. The magazine and book divisions co-produce The A* List, an e-newsletter which is read by over 100,000 travelers and cross promoted on the website. Nina Hoffman, President of National Geographic Books, said “we’re about getting the whole travel experience. It’s a 360۫ approach.”

Being Everything to Every Traveler Everywhere

As if helping you make your own guidebooks and sending information directly to your phone weren’t enough, major travel publishers are doing even more to get your attention online. Long the bane of the travel publisher, booking sites like Orbitz, Travelocity, Expedia, and Kayak are multiplying and so are travel planning sites with user-generated elements like Gusto and RealTravel. In an “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” move, Lonely Planet opened Haystack, a hotel reservation service (haystack.lonelyplanet.com). The site allows travelers to book rooms at accommodations reviewed and rated in the guides. Once one of the guide writers visits a hotel and deems it worthy, Lonely Planet offers its proprietors the chance to be listed in Haystack for a 10% commission on every booking.

If Rough Guides wants to be MySpace for travelers, Lonely Planet wants to be your YouTube. Once you get to your Haystack hostel in Slovakia, you can then broadcast your experiences, good, bad, and bizarre, to fellow travelers and Lonely Planet editors via lonelyplanet.tv. With an easy interface and a map feature that lets you virtually wander the globe for videos, the site has six channels (travel mishaps and parties are two of the categories) and tagging, integrating pretty much every 2.0 feature a user could want. But not to be outdone on the 2.0 front, Rough Guides is launching iToors podcasts, podscrolls, and audio phrasebooks as part of its 25th anniversary website re-design this summer, all free thanks to ads.

Not all travel publishers are jumping on the digital bandwagon, however. Patrick Dawson, joint managing director at Footprint, said it takes a lot of investment of time and money to get digital initiatives going, and just keeping a high quality guide up-to-date each year is challenging enough. Thomas Cook has a website and online catalog where you can purchase books, but no plans to go digital either. “The real advantage of going digital is the ability to update constantly. All print industries will need to evolve, but the guidebook will never be dead,” commented Benchwick of Lonely Planet. “Crowd-sourcing is valuable, but there will always be room in the industry for expert advice.”

The Bluelist is perhaps the best incarnation of this idea. A word coined by Lonely Planet, to “bluelist” something is to suggest it to another traveler. More general than the user-generated guides at travel.dk.com, a user’s Bluelist is a compilation of favorite destinations, worst hostels, best parks, or most exciting international events. The best user-generated Bluelists are included in an annual book alongside lists and commentary on the year in travel by experts. A sturdy paperback coffee table book, Bluelist 2007 is not one you’d want chunked or sliced.

Part Two: Entering a Widget-Free Zone

After spending $12,500 on 75 pounds of signed photographs and essays on the life of Muhammad Ali, the last thing you want near your “monument on paper” (as Der Spiegel called it) is someone trying to slice it up for parts. At least this was the idea when Taschen released the Champ’s Edition of GOAT: Greatest Athlete of All Time several years ago. “The book has simply become another ‘widget,’” said Charlie Melcher of Melcher Media, and no, he wasn’t referring to the desktop application many now depend on for weather and stock updates. “The book is becoming a commodity with less cultural value than it used to have, and the special/limited edition is a way to increase the value.”

Of course special editions are nothing new. As Peter Beren, VP, Publishing at Palace Press International explained, previously, special editions were confined to signed editions by John Steinbeck, John McPhee or other literary authors. There were also the virtuoso books that focused on craft and sold pretty much exclusively to collectors through antiquarian bookshops. “The book that busted through these categories was GOAT from Taschen,” he said.

Since the success of GOAT in 2003, Taschen started a more approachable limited edition program in addition to the “sumos,” the larger-than-life multi-thousand dollar books, they’ve always sold. “There has definitely been an increase in demand for limited and special editions in the past few years,” said Jason Mitchell of Taschen. The first Collector’s edition, Surf Photography of the 1960s and 1970s by LeRoy Grannis, came out last year. Selling for $400, the numbered book had a larger than typical trim size and included signed Grannis prints. All 1000 copies sold out. About a year later, the “popular” edition with a slightly smaller trim size came out for $40. Taschen has done several more. “They’re extremely popular and sell out well before the pub date,” said Mitchell.

First as a printer, then a packager and now as a publisher, Palace Press by way of Insight Editions has adopted the limited special edition approach as well, perhaps even perfecting the path trod by GOAT. “What we do is publish trade editions of popular culture subjects with production values and quality associated with art books,” said Beren. “People still value the tactile experience of a book and anything that enhances that in the age of the internet works.” As a packager, Palace Press partnered with Abrams to create Dressing a Galaxy in 2005. Written by the costume designer from the Star Wars prequel trilogy, the collector’s edition sold for $295 and famously came with a swatch of Darth Vader’s cloak. Elvis at 21 and 24: Behind the Scenes both came out last year. The latter included bonuses like a DVD and the autograph of the show’s star, Kiefer Sutherland, adding even more to the “book experience,” as Beren called it.

Superficially at least, Muhammad Ali, surfing, Star Wars, and 24 don’t have much in common. What they do share, however, are passionate and loyal fan bases, which has so far have been the key to selling a book priced ten times higher than what the average consumer usually spends. “When we do a special edition, there has to be a pent up demand for it,” said Steve Tager, VP Publisher of Abrams. Its largest and latest special edition is Earth From Above, a five foot wide, 70-80 pound book of photography by Yann Arthus-Bertrand that comes with its own wooden stand and will sell for $1250 when released in November. In its various other editions, the book has sold four million copies internationally. “The book appeals to several markets: the green community, luxury buyers, and gift givers,” said Tager.

Encased in a wooden box imprinted with a stylized gun and bullets, the limited special edition of the latest Michael Chabon novel, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, will be released this month. At a price point of $150, all 1000 signed and numbered copies have already been sold and will ship to stores, perhaps thanks to an appeal to several markets. Jeanette Zwart, VP of Field Sales at HarperCollins commented that “Chabon has some crossover interest in the mystery market, which has always done well with collectible titles, and those stores have been especially supportive of the Limited Edition.” Kathy Schneider, Associate Publisher at Harper, said they decided to do a special limited edition for Chabon as “a special perk for the rabid fans of a well-loved author. It will add a nice touch to an already intense marketing campaign in addition to generating revenue.”

At Harvard Bookstore, however, buyer Carole Horne expressed some skepticism about the new Chabon. “To customers, this can feel like a ‘forced collectible’ and in general, they’re not interested,” she said. “For a book like this, we tend to call a customer who we think would be interested.” Typically sold non-returnable at only a 40% discount, special editions can pose a significant risk to booksellers, commented Gerard Nudo, former Manager of New York’s Rizzoli Bookstore, and added that “the real incentive to carry them is to offer our customers something special.” Stan Hynds, buyer at Northsire Bookstore in Manchester Center, Vermont, said he almost never buys limited editions, though admitted the payoff can be worth it when one sells. “If you sell one, you make a lot of money on the sale. It’s good money. Like furniture. But you have to know you have the customer.”

Also like furniture, a limited edition has revenue-generating potential for the reader down the road. Sometimes worth thousands of dollars individually, the signatures and bonuses included in limited editions can make a $295 book look like a downright bargain. “At auction, a David Plowden print sells for between $5000 and $7500,” said Louise Brockett of Norton whose collection of David Plowden’s photography will retail for $350 in October. “The 100-150 limited editions of Vanishing Point will not only be signed by Plowden, but will include a signed print as well.” Taschen’s $400 surfing book is listed for $2000 on Amazon just a year after publication. Melcher Media decided to give special editions a go for the first time with a 5000 copy limited run of a photography book as well. Illuminations by Lynn Davis was released recently with a party at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York. Likewise, a Lynn Davis print is a rarity in the art world as she only prints three copies of each photo.

Though fabric swatches and an inflatable Jeff Koons sculpture like the one that came with GOAT certainly beguile a devoted reader, sometimes the only bell or whistle needed to add value is the author’s signature. As Beren of Palace Press said, the signed edition is nothing new, but Random House is cutting out the bookshop middle man by selling autographed first editions themselves through the formal Signed Editions program (randomhouse.com/signed). Each book comes with a special signature-page embossed with the Random House logo, an official letter of authentication, and a collector’s band. So far, ten titles by ten very different authors such as Tavis Smiley, Bill Bryson, and Kevin Clash, the actor who played Elmo on Sesame Street, are available. for between $29.95 and $59.95. Random House declined to comment on the initiative. HarperCollins and the authors of Freakonomics, on the other hand, have given away over 2000 signed bookplates for free. All a devoted fan has to do is fill out a comment form on the Freakonomics website and both Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner will sign and send a bookplate sticker.

One can’t underestimate the signature for adding value. John Evans of Lemuria Books in Jackson, Mississippi realized this in 1993 when he began the First Editions Club. The purpose of the group was to keep up with all the customers who wanted signed editions of the many notable authors who passed through for readings. Since then, the negative option club has grown from 10 to between 275 and 300 members. They’ve had long relationships with Charles Frazier and Ed Jones who both had their first books chosen long before they were nationally known. “At a time when the emphasis is on discounting, we are adding value to the book,” said Evans. “The First Editions Club is our heartbeat. It keeps the whole store going.”

Neil Ortenberg, EVP of the Avalon Publishing Group and Publisher of Thunders Mouth/Nation Books has resigned. He may be reached at (917) 620-4435.

Becky Saletan is joining Harcourt as Editor in Chief in June. She was Editorial Director of North Point Press. Tina Pohlmann is also joining as Senior Editor, Harvest. She was Senior Editor at Carroll & Graf and replaces Kati Hesford, who has resigned to join her husband who has been posted to the American Embassy in Rome. … Rosemary Ahern has joined Other Press as Executive Editor to spearhead their fiction program. She was most recently at Washington Square Press.

Chuck Adams is joining Algonquin Books “overseeing the editorial effort,” and based in Chapel Hill, though he will spend time each month in New York. He was at S&S. … Michael Kazan, EVP, Director of Business Development and Client Relations at Spier Inc., has left the company and may be reached at mkazan4207@aol.com. … Jeannie Bailey is moving to Nashville to work for Thomas Nelson as Director National Accounts. She will report to Ron Land. Most recently she was Director of Mass Market Sales for DK. … Kathleen Halligan, formerly manager, National Accounts Random House Children’s Books, has joined Ripe Ideas, a brand development company. She may be reached at (212) 905-3173 or kathleen@ ripeideasinc.com. … Ben Bruton, Assoc. Director of Publicity at Doubleday, is taking his title and going to Atria/S&S.

Sara Nelson, Glamour’s Senior Contributing Editor, Books, and columnist for The New York Observer, will do a regular Monday morning stint on Air America, the new liberal radio network.

Atlanta-based The News Group has opened new offices in New Jersey to service the book publishing community. Sharon Hails has left Harlequin after eight months, to become VP Book Sales and Marketing. Marcia Roney is Director of Book Marketing. They may be reached at shailstng@aol.com and mroneytng@ aol.com or (973) 237-9600.

PGW has hired two Marketing Managers — Eric Kettunen, former US General Manager for Lonely Planet, who replaced the departed Michele Crim, and Rick Bauer, former Senior VP of Viz, the US publisher of Japanese animation comics.

In agency news, Elizabeth Sheinkman is opening a London branch of the Elaine Markson Agency. Jennifer Repo joined the Joelle Delbourgo agency based in Los Angeles. She was at Riverhead and Perigee. Anita Diggs has joined Frank Weimann’s The Literary Group as an agent. She recently left now-defunct Savoy magazine.

Elsewhere, Gordon Macomber has been named President of the Thomson Gale Publishing Group. Macomber was most recently CEO of Merriam Webster. … Keith Titan has joined RH as VP, Director of New Media. He was Senior Director of e-publishing & e-commerce at S&S. … Michael Morrison has hired Rob McMahon as Senior Editor of Morrow/Avon. He was most recently at Putnam. … Beau Friedlander has gone to Reed Elsevier’s Reed Press as Executive Editor, working for Fred Ciporen. He had been Publisher and Editor in Chief of Context Books, and replaces Nick Weir Williams, who left recently.

Houghton Children’s Books’ Editorial Director Judy O’Malley has left the company after just over a year.

PROMOTIONS

Perseus announced that Stephen Bottum, formerly Executive Managing Editor and Publishing Manager for Basic Books, Basic Civitas, and Counterpoint, has been promoted to VP, Group Managing Editor. William Morrison Garland has been promoted from Associate Managing Editor to the position of M.E. of Basic Books, Basic Civitas, and Counterpoint. Megan Hustad has been promoted to Editor for Basic Books, Basic Civitas and Counterpoint. … James Howitt has been promoted to Director of Client and Product Development at Bookscan. He moved from the UK to the US office last April.

APRIL EVENTS

The Academy of American Poets, whose Ninth Annual National Poetry Month takes place in April, kicks off with its second annual benefit, Poetry & the Creative Mind on April 6, at Lincoln Center. Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Tony Kushner, Kevin Kline, Wynton Marsalis, Louis Menand, Vanessa Redgrave, and Meryl Streep, among others, will read their favorite poems.

• The final lecture in the five-part series on the Algonquin Round Table, “Wit’s End on West 44th Street” will feature biographer Marion Meade speaking about the life of Dorothy Parker. April 13th at 6 p.m. at the Small Press Center, 20 West 44th. Call (212) 840-1840 or go to www. generalsociety.org.

• Jupitermedia’s Digital Rights Management Strategies Conference will be held April 12-14 at the Crowne Plaza Times Square. The conference focuses on DRM business and technology issues and explores copyright, online piracy and other current issues. Speakers include ContentGuard CEO Michael Miron, Wiley’s Director, New Initiatives, Jonathan Stowe, and Siva Vaidhyanathan, Director, Communications Studies, NYU, and author of Copyrights and Copywrongs and the just published The Anarchist in the Library. To register email registration@ jupitermedia.com or call (203) 662-2857. Also at the Crowne Plaza this month: The April 20th PAMA luncheon features a panel discussion entitled “Break Out Books.” Denise Berthiaume is moderator and St. Martin’s John Cunningham and Lisa Gallagher and S&S/Atria’s Judith Curr will participate. Contact: PAMA_NY@hotmail.com.

• NYU’s Center for Publishing will hold its second Management Forum for Independent Publishers on April 23-24. Speakers include Borders’ Phil Ollila, Harvard Business School Press’s David Goehring and keynote David Godine. Call (212) 992-3236 for details.

• The LA Times Festival of Books takes place April 24-25, and the LA Times Book Prizes will be presented at UCLA on April 24. In addition to nine category awards, the annual Robert Kirsch Award will recognize an author whose oeuvre focuses on the Western region of the US. For more information call (800) LATIMES, ext. 72366.

DULY NOTED

The Village Voice reports that Tod Sacerdoti’s How to Use Google has been at the top of Amazon’s bestseller lists for months. A 12-page PDF, it costs $1.99. Now Sacerdoti is taking the concept of short and cheap to traditional books, providing summaries of popular nonfiction books, including Jack, Straight from the Gut, and Atkins New Diet Revolution in PDF formats. He contacts publishers for rights, and claims that, “while some have said please don’t do this, some have said, please do do this.”

• The March 29th edition of the NYT contains an editorial that begins “Last September the Office of Foreign Assets Control — part of the Treasury Department — made a surprising ruling. Publishers could publish works by authors living in certain countries, including Iran, Libya, Sudan and Cuba, but they couldn’t edit them. Those countries are subject to American economic sanctions, and the office decided that to consult with an author about a manuscript was against the rules.” The editorial ends with the rousing line, “Ideas pose no risk to us until we begin to try to control them.” Separately, AAP and member publishers have met with Bush Administration officials to protest this ruling. The AAP board is meeting in April to discuss options, which are said to include the possibility of a lawsuit. Separately, PEN American Center sent a letter to the Treasury Department — and cc’d President Bush, among others — requesting “an immediate review of OFAC regulations that could be interpreted to bar or restrict in any way publication of literature.” The letter strongly suggested a First Amendment infringement. Several book and magazine publishers have already vowed to flout the ruling, and the Council on Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) stated it will support their efforts.

• Services for Spalding Gray have been planned: The first service will be April 15 at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre at Lincoln Center in New York City, at a time yet to be determined. The second service is scheduled for 5 p.m. on May 15 at the Whaling Church in Sag Harbor, N.Y.

As summer winds down, it’s been unusually quiet in publishers’ halls, but look to an interesting Fall, with new positions being created, even as more rounds of layoffs are rumored. Meanwhile:

Holt’s Maggie Richards has hired Richard Rhorer as Marketing Director. He was previously Director of Marketing for the Rayo imprint at HarperCollins. . . Jay Sherman has been named VP, Operations for AMS, reporting to Mike Focht, EVP, Operations. He was with Random House. . . Jim Cook has been named Manager Specialty Retail for Running Press (Perseus Publishing), replacing Rich Kelly, who has left the company. Cook was Director of Sales & Marketing for Taylor & Francis.

SparkNotes has appointed Laurie Barnett as Editorial Director, in charge of all editorial development for its high school and college print and web product lines, reporting to Dan Weiss. She was VP and Editor-in-Chief of the Peterson’s division of Thomson Learning. And Stephanie Karmol has been named Sales & Marketing Associate, reporting to Associate Publisher Robert Riger. She was previously in the Children’s Marketing Group at Penguin. Also departing Penguin is Kelly Notaras, who left Plume to join Hyperion as a Senior Editor.

Ann Binkley, former Director of Public Relations for Borders, is settled into her new role as Executive Director of New York Is Book Country. She may be reached at ann.binkley.nyibc@c2media.com.

Gary Todoroff has moved to Lonely Planet USA, as Director of Sales. His new work email address is gary.todoroff@lonelyplanet.com.

Kensington Books, which recently hired former NAL Executive Editor Audrey LeFehr as Editorial Director and Lynn Bond, formerly of RH Value, as Director of Sales and New Business, has laid off longtime Executive Editor Ann La Farge. She may be reached at alafarge@aol.com.

Between publishing endeavors, Cathy Fox now has her real estate license and is associated with Hudson Affiliates, Inc. in Westchester. She can be reached at (914) 693-8878 or alafarge@aol.com.

As previously reported, Tony Lucki, most recently President of Harcourt, has been named CEO of Houghton Mifflin. He had worked at HM from 1977 to 1987. Pat Tierney, Global CEO of Reed’s Harcourt Education Group (which includes the trade division), will not replace Lucki, but takes on his direct reports.

While PW’s Steve Zeitchik is on sabbatical, Karen Holt has been pitching in. But what’s happening at Book Publishing Report, which Holt left earlier in the year? It’s being run by David Jastrow, who holds the titles of Managing Editor and Senior Analyst. He can be reached by email at David_Jastrow@simbanet.com.

Harlequin has named Sharon Hails to the new post of Director of Sales, Direct Retail. She was most recently SVP for marketing and merchandising at Sher Distributing.

PROMOTIONS

Rodale has recently named Dana Bacher to the position of Marketing Director, reporting to Associate Publisher Cindy Ratzlaff. Dana has been Associate Rights Director at Rodale since 2000. Prior to joining Rodale she held positions at Running Press and Kepler’s Bookstore in Palo Alto.

DULY NOTED

Walker Publishing is moving back to its Fifth Avenue roots: On September 11 it takes over some of Abrams’ space, on the 7th floor of 104 Fifth Avenue. The phone number remains the same: (212) 727-8300.

• The world of small presses has been chattering about an increase in submissions of late. One correspondent notes that “Each has a cover letter in identical format. The last three lines of each letter are the same or virtually so. The stories are not coming from students. The senders all give their backgrounds, including their degrees and teaching experience and previous publications.” He wonders, “Might something like this be the culprit?,” and proceeds to give the URL of Writer’s Relief, Inc. (www.wrelief.com), a New Jersey company that streamlines manuscript submissions. Their site claims that, “If you love to write but hate the business of writing, we can help. Stop spending your valuable time researching markets, requesting guidelines, preparing cover letters, tracking submissions, and doing the many tasks required to see your work published. Rejection letters don’t bother us. In fact, we view them as steps bringing you closer to publication.” The cost for these services isn’t stipulated on the site, but the company claims not to take an agent’s cut, just a fee. And, they say, editors themselves have now become Writer’s Relief clients.

• The last word is in on Otto Penzler v. Michael Viner and vice versa, where Market Partners served as a publishing expert and Penzler was ably represented pro bono by Boies, Schiller & Flexner, and the outcome was a $2.8 million judgment in Penzler’s favor. According to Penzler, the jury of eight was unanimous in their verdict, believing both his testimony as well as the testimony of Harlan Ellison, who took the stand to corroborate the authors’ point of view. The truly happy ending is that Larry Kirshbaum has agreed to issue the rest of the sports mystery series — at least four more titles — under the Warner imprint.

• Last seen on the high seas: one hundred members of The Young to Publishing Group signed up for an evening of sailing recently offered by the AAP — one of numerous activities offered to members of the group, which is funded by the AAP. Membership in the YPG is free and open to “entry-level and junior industry employees (typically with 0-5 years of publishing experience).” Currently there are 600 members from 40+ companies in nine states. The group meets for monthly brown bag lunches, and can sign on to the “Little Big Mouth List” to receive galleys based on stated reading interests. For more information, contact Anne Garinger at agaringer@publishers.org.

SEPTEMBER EVENTS

“The Future of Licensing,” presented by The Licensing Letter, is scheduled for Sept. 9, 2003 at the Tribeca Grand Hotel. The keynote will be Andy Mooney, Chairman, Disney Consumer Products. In addition, Yankelovich will present research on consumer trends. Topics include Selling to the Emerging Majorities, Channel Strategies, and The Global Future (with IMG as the model of a global licensing company). To register, call (212) 941-0099 and mention Publishing Trends. (Event is open exclusively to subscribers to The Licensing Letter and Publishing Trends.) Fee is $995 and includes lunch.

• On Sept. 17 New York Is Book Country kicks off the many events that culminate in the 25th anniversary of its Fifth Avenue Fair on Sunday, Sept. 21. Included are a Business Book Day (Sept. 17); a gala evening for authors and their readers on Sept. 18; NY Is Film Book Country on the 19th; a day of speakers that include Steve Martin, Neil Gaiman, and Walter Isaacson on Sept. 20; and the NYT Literary Brunch, featuring among others Mitch Albom, E. Lynn Harris, James Patterson, and Peggy Noonan, on Sept. 21. Robert Lipsyte will MC the event. Go to NYisbookcountry.org for details. The Mercantile Library will host an exhibit of posters that have been created for Book Country over 25 years, from Sept. 4-19. Call (212) 755-6710 for more information.

• The Frederick Douglass Creative Arts Center presents “Celebrating the Black Voice Weekend,” September 20-21 at the Aaron David Hall. Regina Morris from William Morris, Marie Brown, Cherise Grant from S&S, and HarperCollins’ Kelli Martin kick off the weekend with a panel on “How to Get Your Book Published.” A dialogue with Derek Wolcott and August Wilson is scheduled for Sunday afternoon. For more information see www.fdcac.org.

MAZEL TOV

Congratulations to Hearst Books Publisher Jacqueline Deval, proud mom of Madeline Emily, born August 4. (Brother Jordan is now 7.)

Evangelist/keynote speaker Jason Epstein (3 Billion Books) peddled his now familiar line that the only road to universal knowledge is via the digital catalog and a machine which he claims can produce a bound book from a digital file for just a few dollars. Replies to questions about the business model were unconvincing, although Epstein maintains he’s got World Bank cash earmarked for a pilot scheme of 10 machines in underdeveloped countries. Once the futurist floodgates were opened, the dot-com hopefuls (there are still a few around), and leather-sandaled academics jumped in, clutching his or her digital baggage. It was generally agreed that the book does have a future, although given the caveat that “screens that mimic paper are not far away,” Epstein is recommending against further investment in brick warehouses.

Nina Ziv, Professor at the NY Polytechnic University, shared some useful research conducted with major US trade publishers who are going digital. Michael Cairns (yes, he made the joke), President of Bowker USA, shed some newish light on supply chain options, and Chandi Perera of Lonely Planet showed that publishers can do effective market research and build a strategy with the results. In the end, the conference was mostly a meeting of non-practitioners who, with the luxury of not having to make the numbers work, were able to fly some odd-looking though occasionally thought-provoking kites.

We thank Robert Sessions, Publishing Director of Penguin Books Australia, for this report.

PT asked if Hoover’s Vision is for business moguls only, or does it appeal to a broader audience? It’s for “anyone who leads anything,” says Hoover. “I go around the world speaking to folks who run steel plants, universities, dotcoms, and dry cleaners. Enterprises of all types — for profit and non-, from tiny to titanic — all succeed and fail on the same principles. Because a key part of my message is creative thinking, it often rings especially true to entrepreneurs. But those in large corporations often do not realize that a lack of entrepreneurial thinking is what can make them the next Lucent, Sears, GM, or AT&T.”

As to why he chose Texere as his publisher, Hoover explained: “I developed a personal rapport with Myles Thompson of Texere and this was key to my decision. Like myself, he got his schooling while working for established industry leaders, then took the plunge and went out on his own. By working with Texere, I get the outstanding Norton marketing and distribution team coupled with a smaller publisher who pays attention to my book as if it were his own: the best of all possible worlds.”

PT wanted to know what Hoover thought had changed most since he was a book retailer: “Changes in the book business have been more evolutionary than revolutionary since we sold Bookstop to Barnes & Noble in 1989. . . . More power has shifted from the manufacturers to the retailers, which is parallel with what has happened in groceries and many other categories. With Oprah, the power to move books has become more concentrated. On the other hand, the rise of the superstore means that more backlist and more small authors and publishers get exposure to more consumers. The publishing industry seems resistant to change — the formats, pricing, and trim sizes are not moving. While there have been a lot of mergers, most of the exciting action is on the part of smaller, more innovative publishers like Motorbooks, Workman, and Taschen. I believe this was true when I entered the business: companies like Ten Speed and Lonely Planet were tiny startups.

“Going forward into the future, I would question the soundness of many of the business approaches at work today. The ‘department store of books’ at either the retail or publishing level would not appear to be the best strategy for most competitors, if you study the history of other industries that have gone down the same path. Narrow is better than broad, focus is better than diversity. There is room for one or two winning ‘all things for all people’ plays, but not for 3 or 6 or 20.”