News from the Frankfurt Book Fair: Google Battle, E-reader Software, New Ebook Company
Reports from <i>Publishers Weekly</i>
-- Library Journal, 10/16/2009
Our sibling publication, Publishers Weekly, has lots of news from the ongoing Frankfurt Book Fair. Some highlights;On the Google Book Search deal:
There’s been a simmering anti-Google sentiment at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair, no doubt connected to European objections to the Google Book Search Settlement. And on Friday that simmer reached a boil, as the deal faced harsh—at times, puzzling—criticism at a registration-required panel on “European and American Positions Towards the Google Settlement.”On new eReader software:
Baker & Taylor announced a partnership with acclaimed scientist, inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil, CEO of Kurzweil Technologies, to supply digital content for K-NFB Reading Technology, a newly developed e-book reading software created by Kurzweil in collaboration with the National Federation of the Blind. The software will be offered to consumers for free. B&T unveiled the software at the Frankfurt Book Fair with plans to launch the new reader in the U.S. at the end of November.On a new company from a publishing veteran, aimed at ebooks:
From the Frankfurt Book Fair where she is promoting her new company, former HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman has added a few more details about her new operation, Open Road Integrated Media. As previously reported, Kohlberg Ventures is paving the Open Road with $3 million in funding, and Friedman called Open Road “a multilayered company” that will be centered around the publication of e-books, both originals and backlist, while also doing print-on-demand, producing films for theatrical release and promoting e-books from other publishers through Open Roads proprietary marketing platform.On collusion among foreign publishers:
Are foreign publishers colluding to keep advances down? At least one American agent thinks so. Amid the regular appointments and deal-making in the rights centre, one thing that has ignited chatter is an e-mail message that Trident chairman Robert Gottlieb sent to a number of foreign clients just before the Fair. The mass e-mail, which PW obtained and which was sent to editors in countries including Germany, Italy and Holland, claims there has been “an increased level” of collusion among foreign publishers.Also, PW reports that a Barnes & Noble e-reader is in the offing.
