publishing

Get a $379 Windows software bundle for $49

Need a good desktop-publishing program? For my money, nothing compares to Serif PagePlus X6. At $99.99, it's a fraction of the cost of Adobe InDesign and QuarkXPress (which, against all logic, still sell for hundreds and hundreds of dollars). And it's nearly as capable as both.

For a limited time, you can get Serif PagePlus X6 for just $49 -- oh, and six other programs, too.

It's all part of Avanquest Software's PC SuperBundle, which includes $379' worth of Windows software for that same price.

I'll come right out and say that PagePlus is … Read more

Publishers' worst nightmare: Amazon again on discount warpath

Last week, HarperCollins, Hachette, and Simon & Schuster cut a deal with the government to settle allegations that the book publishers had colluded with Apple to fix the price of e-books. If you believe the government's charges, the book publishers were trying to prevent Amazon from discounting them to death.

Now it's back to the future. Earlier today came word that Amazon had returned to form, discounting HarperCollins e-books titles.

"We are happy to again be lowering prices on a broad assortment of HarperCollins titles," Amazon spokeswoman Sarah Gelman said in an e-mailed comment to CNET.… Read more

DOJ, please don't let up on Apple, book publishers

It's not wrong for retailers to discount books, and losing market share to a competitor is no excuse to fix prices or cheat consumers.

That's the message U.S. District Court Judge Denise Cote sent yesterday to Apple and the country's top book publishers, as well as e-book retailers.

In April, the Department of Justice filed suit and accused five of the country's largest book publishers of conspiring with Apple to raise e-book prices. Soon after, the DOJ reached a settlement agreement with three of the accused publishers. For months, the book industry attacked the settlement, … Read more

Court OKs feds' e-book settlement with publishers

A federal court has approved a settlement agreement reached between the U.S. Department of Justice and three book publishers accused of conspiring with Apple to fix e-book prices.

The DOJ filed suit against Apple and five of the country's largest book publishers in April and accused the group of antitrust violations. Immediately after filing the complaint, the government announced that it had reached a settlement with three of the five accused publishers: Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, and Simon & Schuster (owned by CBS, parent company of CNET).

As part of that settlement, the three e-book publishers agreed … Read more

Apple offers up e-book discount to avoid antitrust fines, report says

Apple has come up with a deal that may get the company out of an European antitrust investigation and avoid possible fines by letting its competitors sell e-books at a discount, Reuters reported today.

The agreement, proposed by Apple and four major publishers, would let e-book retailers like Amazon sell books at a lower price for two years, an unnamed source told Reuters.

In fear of Apple squashing competition in Europe, the European Union's commission overseeing antitrust violations began investigating Apple's e-book prices in December.

The four publishers -- Simon & Schuster (which is owned by CBS, the … Read more

Lights turning off at Nintendo Power?

Before Google, many young'uns (such as myself) relied on magazines, telephone hotlines, and other old-world forms of communication to learn more about upcoming video games, hints, or cheats. One favored source of Nintendo game information for many people, Nintendo Power, will end its 24-year run this year, reports Ars Technica.

Supposedly, the magazine's parent company, Future Publishing, could not strike up a new contract with Nintendo to keep the publication going. An Ars source cites Nintendo as "difficult to work with," uninterested in expanding online content for the Nintendo Power brand, and even unwilling to retake the magazine from Future (which gained rights to the magazine in 2007 from Nintendo).

Future Publishing did not immediately respond to CNET's request for comment. … Read more

Adobe fleshes out Muse, Edge tools for Web publishing

Illustrating one of its selling points for its software subscription plans, Adobe Systems has updated Muse three months after it first released the tool for designing and publishing Web pages.

Adobe released Muse along with the Creative Cloud subscription service, which lets people use the full panoply of Adobe Creative Suite 6 (CS6) software along with some online services including Web hosting, Web fonts, and file synchronization. Part of the Creative Cloud sales pitch is that Adobe will update its components as new features arrive, meaning that subscribers get new abilities without having to wait for CS7.

The new version … Read more

Apple slams Justice Dept.'s proposed e-book settlement

The Justice Department's proposed settlement with three book publishers over alleged e-book price fixing is "fundamentally unfair, unlawful, and unprecedented," Apple said in a legal memo today.

In an antitrust lawsuit filed in April, federal prosecutors accused Apple and five book publishers of conspiring to artificially hike prices. The same day, the Justice Department announced it had reached settlements with three publishers but said Apple and the other two publishers had opted to fight the charges.

The proposed settlement -- with Lagardere SCA's Hachette Book Group, News Corp.'s HarperCollins Publishers, and Simon & Schuster (owned … Read more

Twitter co-founders preview Medium, a new publishing tool

Obvious, the company led by Twitter co-founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone, has been busy building a collaborative publishing tool called Medium, and today it previewed what it has been working on.

With the launch of the new platform, the company is "re-imagining publishing in an attempt to make an evolutionary leap," Williams explained today in a company blog post.

"Lots of services have successfully lowered the bar for sharing information, but there's been less progress toward raising the quality of what's produced," Williams wrote. "While it's great that you can be … Read more