PW Signs with netGalley
PW has partnered with Rosetta Solutions to use the company’s digital galley tracking service, netGalley, to coordinate its book review section. PW will use netGalley to save title metadata, press materials and promotional information. Publishers will be able to upload their own information through the service.
HM Harcourt Cuts Jobs
In its ongoing integration of Harcourt, Houghton Mifflin cut an undisclosed number of staffers while promoting others from within. While the publisher would not confirm how many people were laid off, cuts were made on both the Harcourt and Houghton Mifflin sides. Andrea Schulz and Ken Carpenter were promoted; Schulz to v-p and editor-in-chief of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Trade, and Carpenter to v-p and director of trade paperbacks for the combined Mariner, HM and Harvest lists.
RH and HC Test Online Snippets
Last week Random House and HarperCollins both took forays into splicing their books into downloadable content, offering snippets (and sometimes more) of titles online. Random announced that Chip and Dan Heath’s January 2007 hardcover, Made to Stick, will be available for purchase by chapters priced at $2.99 each. HC, testing a giveaway model, launched with “full access” and “sneak peek” models. The former will give consumers the ability to read selected titles in their entirety for a limited time, while the latter will allow readers to peruse 20% of certain titles pre-pub. Authors like Paulo Coelho are testing the full access model—which is expected to spur print sales—with the publisher now.
Free Download
Appearing last week on The Oprah Winfrey Show, financial author Suze Orman announced that her bestselling book Women & Money (Random) can be downloaded for free at Oprah.com. It’s the first time Oprah has offered an entire book for free download.
TOC in NYC
O’Reilly’s second annual Tools of Change for Publishing conference took place last week in New York City, doubling its registered attendees to 900. Among the keynote speakers were tech strategist Stephen Abram, Tim O’Reilly, Bob Young of POD publisher Lulu.com and tech cultural critic Douglas Rushkoff. Held this year in the heart of the book industry, TOC exhorted publishers to adopt the new digital paradigm, encourage online community and solicit it for new business models and new kinds of digital content to sell. While TOC will return to Manhattan in 2009, dates and venue have not been confirmed.
