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Powerful Media Start-Up Eyes Book Industry
Calvin Reid -- 4/17/00

With the much-anticipated launch of Inside.com, the Web-based media and business news service, fast approaching, the company's parent, Powerful Media Inc., announced that it has acquired Prepub.com, a Web site launched by agent Noah Lukeman last year to track title acquisitions and rights deals.

Powerful Media was formed by Kurt Andersen, former editor-in-chief at New York magazine; Deanna Brown, former president of Brill's Content; and Michael Hirschorn, former editor-in-chief of Spin magazine. Powerful Media expects to launch Inside.com this spring. The site will specialize in covering the business side of the books, TV and film, music and technology industries.

Hirschorn told PW that Inside.com will provide a mix of free and subscription services and that the firm also plans to eventually launch a print magazine. He said that Prepub.com will serve as the initial basis for Book Tracker, a subscription service database to be offered through the site that will track book properties from the initial rights sale until the book's publication. Book Tracker is supervised by P.J. Mark, a former scout with Mary Anne Thompson Associates. The editor of Inside.com's Books section is Sara Nelson, formerly with Oxygen.com and a cofounder of the AOL and Web-based book information site Book Report.

The Book Tracker database will be searchable in a variety of ways and will track 15 categories of data, including agent, editor and book synopsis as well as film, TV and other rights. Hirschorn said the database will be a "tool for people in the business and a source for stories for us."
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