Earlier this month, internet titan Google acquired guidebook publisher Zagat for a reported $125 million. Zagat has been publishing restaurant guidebooks for over 30 years, and has had problems breaking into the online reviewing world, with Yelp being their biggest competitor—problems that Google is well prepared to address.
We have lost treasured authors and friends this month. We mourn their passing, and celebrate their lives. Mr. Joseph Garland passed away on August 30, 2011. We first met Joe in the 1980s when he championed the Schooner Adventure’s return to Gloucester; he helped us research and put together the Web site for the ship in →
Starting in October, the Boston Globe will start a digital-only subscription of $3.99 a week for access to stories and breaking news from their website. The new pay-to-read website will be accessible anywhere using a “responsive web design” that automatically adjusts to any screen. This business model differs from other online newspapers that allow you →
The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has granted Reykjavik, Iceland official “City of Literature” status. Reykjavik is the fifth city to receive the honor, following Edinburgh, Scotland; Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; Iowa City, Iowa, U.S.; and Dublin, Ireland. It is the 29th member of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network overall. UNESCO Cities of →
We saw the e-wave coming over thirty years ago and are working today to help publishers adapt to and profit from new internet-based publishing opportunities. Read the below excerpt from a “What’s New” OBS posted over ten years ago; you will see that OBS has a strong working knowledge not only of the traditional publishing →
Today, August 22, American fiction legend Ray Bradbury turns 91. Having penned such stories as Fahrenheit 451, The Illustrated Man, The Martian Chronicles, and Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury has entertained and inspired countless readers since the 1930’s and is still writing today. Today, on his birthday, his semi-autobiographical novel Dandelion Wine was picked up by Phoenix Pictures to →
Apple is standing alongside five major publishing houses at the defendant’s table for allegedly conspiring to raise e-book prices. HarperCollins, Hachette, Macmillan, Penguin, and Simon & Schuster are on the stand defending themselves against allegations that Apple aided them in pushing Amazon away from their standard $9.99 price point for newly released and bestselling Kindle →
A new buzz-term is flying around the publishing community: Social Reading. New websites have been popping up over the past year and a half, from Copia to Shelfari, bringing together ebook clubs from readers all over the world and connecting them with other book-lovers with similar interests. From these sites one can read, buy, comment, →
I caught a glimpse of the new “book futures” market on Day – 1 of the London Book Fair last Sunday. The pre-show Digital Conference was my “jet lag day,” that first day after an all-night Boston-to-London flight. Warm room, low lighting, comfortable chairs, it was tempting sometimes to try and listen to the presenters →
OBS will present on a panel at the first annual Independent Publishers of New England (IPNE — http://www.ipne.org/) conference, “Survive and Thrive,” tomorrow, March 26, 2011, in Waltham. David Godine will be the Keynote speaker. Looking forward to it!