publishing

It looks like YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen have a new service called "Zeen" -- designed to let users "discover and create beautiful magazines" -- coming soon.

Blog Fusible spotted a teaser page for the site earlier today, at zeen.com. The page features a box that lets visitors reserve a username; links to Zeen's Twitter and Facebook pages; and links to a page of job listings and a privacy policy. The jobs page lives at AVOS.com -- AVOS, of course, being Hurley and Chen's company, and the company that bought Delicious off of Yahoo a little less than a year ago.… Read more

After vocal outrage from authors, e-publishers, and free speech activists, PayPal has shifted its "acceptable use" policy on e-books containing certain erotica content. The online payment company announced today that mostly books with images will be under scrutiny.

"First and foremost, we are going to focus this policy only on e-books that contain potentially illegal images, not e-books that are limited to just text," PayPal spokesman Anuj Nayar said in a statement today. "The policy will prohibit use of PayPal for the sale of e-books that contain child pornography, or e-books with text and obscene … Read more

Gone are the days of walking over to the bookshelf, grabbing an Encyclopaedia Britannica, and flipping through the pages to look up whatever piqued one's curiosity. The leather-bound print edition set of reference books is now defunct, the company announced today.

However, Encyclopaedia Britannica is also quick to say that this change isn't its swan song. Now, in the digital age, the company will focus on its online encyclopedias and educational curriculum for schools.

"In spite of our long history with print, I would like to point out that no single medium, neither books nor bits, is … Read more

So Apple was conniving with the nation's big book publishers? At first blush, this probably sounded like the oddest coupling since Felix took up residence with Oscar. But strange bedfellows notwithstanding, that's the story out of Washington, where word is that the two sides colluded on a scheme to raise the price of electronic books.

Now it's payback time and book lovers -- e-book buyers, in particular -- ought to be cheering on the trustbusters.

Far be it for me to root for anything the government does, but in this instance I'll make a big exception. … Read more

The U.S. Justice Department plans to sue Apple and five U.S. publishers for alleged price-fixing on e-books, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Several of the parties expected to be named as defendants have already begun discussions with regulators to head off an expensive antitrust court battle, the newspaper reported, citing sources familiar with the matter. Such a settlement would likely have a ripple effect for the industry, however not every publisher is engaged in the settlement discussions, they cautioned.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The publishers expected to be named in the … Read more

Well, I'm bummed. I paid $75 for this product just a few months ago. But I needed it at the time, and it was worth it.

That makes this deal all the more un-pass-up-able.

Today only, PricePlunge has Serif PagePlus X5 for $14.99, plus $1.99 for shipping. Yep, it's an actual boxed copy, not a download. How quaint!

Update: Sold out! Rats. That went really fast. The closest I can find elsewhere is $42.99 shipped at Amazon. Viewed in a vacuum, that's still a great deal. (But not as great as $15, I admit.)… Read more

Links from Thursday's episode of Loaded:

Hard ball by Amazon or simply part of the normal warp and woof of business? Probably a bit of both.

The Independent Publishers Group says Amazon has decided not to renew an agreement to resell electronic titles offered by the book distributor's client publishers in an apparent dispute over wholesale discounts on books. About 5,000 Kindle titles will be affected, though the print editions of the books remain available for sale on Amazon.

The group's president, Mark Suchomel, said in an interview that Amazon "wanted better margins" suggesting this was part of a pressure campaign … Read more

Talk about fast to market.

In the wake of "Linsanity," the worldwide hype that's blown up over the last couple of weeks surrounding New York Knicks sensation Jeremy Lin, there are already at least seven books, all electronic, about basketball's instant star.

From biography to poetry to trivia to Sun Tzu Art of War-type advice, the books run the genre gamut. And all have one thing in common: they were written, edited, and published at breakneck speeds.

According to Digital Book World, one the titles, "Linsanity: The Improbable Rise of Jeremy Lin," by Alan Goldsher, was turned around in just 72 hours. … Read more