Booksellers Association Applauds Agency Model for eBooks

Tarrytown, NY. February 28, 2011. The American Booksellers Association, the national trade association for independent bookstores, today indicated its strong support of the decision by Random House, Inc. to adopt the agency pricing model for the publisher's ebooks in the United States. Under the agency model, a publisher sets a retail price for a specific book, which establishes a level playing field for all resellers.

"We have believed from the beginning that the agency model is in the best interest of not only the book industry, but the consuming public as well," said ABA's Chief Executive Officer, Oren Teicher. "We appreciate the careful and thoughtful deliberation Random House has brought to this issue, and applaud their decision to adopt agency pricing."

With the move to agency, effective March 1, Random House joins a significant number of other major publishers that have already adopted the model. The agency model affects more than 200 ABA member stores with IndieCommerce websites that are now selling Google eBooks online, as well as other resellers of ebooks. As America's largest general interest book publisher, Random House, Inc. books are sold by most independent bookstores.

About American Booksellers Association

Founded in 1900, the American Booksellers Association is a not-for-profit trade organization devoted to meeting the needs of its core members -- independently owned bookstores with storefront locations -- through education, information dissemination, business products and services, and advocacy. ABA exists to protect and promote the interests of independent retail book businesses, as well as to protect the First Amendment rights of every American. The association actively supports free speech, literacy, and programs that support local and independent retail shops. A board of nine booksellers, representing thousands of members, governs the Association. ABA is headquartered in Tarrytown, New York.

2011 BEACH BOOK FESTIVAL CALL FOR ENTRIES

NEW YORK/AUTHORLINK NEWS/February 22, 2011--The 2011 Beach Book Festival has issued its call for entries to its annual awards honoring the hottest reads of the summer season.

The Beach Book Festival will consider self-published or independent publisher non-fiction, fiction, biography/autobiography, children's books, teenage, how-to, science fiction, romance, comics, poetry, spiritual, compilations/anthologies, history, business and health-oriented books published on or after Jan. 1, 2007.

Submitted works will be judged for general excellence, i.e., the potential of the work to be an engaging beach read this summer season. More information on the festival and entry forms are at www.beachbookfestival.com. Regular registration deadline is May 25, 2011.

The 2011 Beach Book Festival will honor winners at a June ceremony at the Algonquin Hotel in New York City.

Random House Acquires Leadership Book by Donovan Campbell

NEW YORK, NY/AUTHORLINK NEWS/February 17, 2011--Random House has acquired a new book on leadership by New York Times bestselling author Donovan Campbell, author of Joker One: A Marine Platoon's Story of Courage, Leadership, and Brotherhood. Drawing on his own experiences in the military, and on the servant-leader model it espouses, Campbell will focus on the role and qualities of character, from humility to sacrifice, as the foundation of great leadership, in business and beyond.
Will Murphy acquired world rights from Eve Bridburg at Zachary Shuster Harmsworth.

Publishers Submit Intellectual Property Report to Government

Washington, DC/AUTHORLINK NEWS/February15, 2011—The Association of American Publishers (AAP), through the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), today submitted its annual Special 301 Report to the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). The report details issues related to intellectual property rights protection and market access in a number of foreign countries.

AAP’s report was part of the annual collective filing by the seven trade associations comprising the IIPA, a coalition representing U.S. copyright-based industries working to improve international protection and enforcement of copyrighted materials and open up foreign markets closed by piracy and other market access barriers.

The American publishing industry is waging a multi-faceted campaign to identify and mitigate pirated content.  Yet the American publishers continue to suffer significant economic harm in key overseas markets as a result of commercial scale photocopying, illegal print runs, unauthorized translations, CD-R burning of textbooks and increasing online piracy.  The AAP report highlights copyright protection and enforcement problems in 40 countries/territories and recommends that 33 of them be placed on an appropriate USTR “watch list.”

Canada’s copyright reform legislation, Bill C-32, raises serious concerns for the publishing sector as it introduces a host of new exceptions to protection, many of which exceed international standards. Some are especially harmful to the publishing sector, threatening to erode distinct markets of the educational community and to negatively impact the well-established collective licensing mechanisms for administering permissions to copy works for educational use. 

China is again a significant focus for AAP’s anti-piracy efforts, with particular emphasis on online infringements affecting professional and scholarly publishers and continuing textbook piracy around university campuses.  AAP remains concerned by the massive sharing of electronic copies of academic, scientific and technical journals by certain institutions with commercial entities in violation of their site licenses.  While publishers are hopeful that discussions with the relevant Chinese agencies will result in meaningful action on this issue, the lack of action against entities such as KJ Med increases concerns that copycat sites will flourish. 

India’s inconsistent enforcement efforts and endemic delays in the judicial system also remain major concerns to publishers. In addition, the Indian government’s current copyright reform proposal includes an amendment that would repeal the current protection against parallel imports which would greatly damage local and American publishers’ market potentials.  

Tom Allen, President and CEO, AAP, noted that through the Special 301 process, the copyright-related industries provide input into the federal government’s annual review of intellectual property protection in several key global markets.

“The copyright-dependent industries remain a critical component to continued U.S. economic growth and job creation,” he said.  “As publishers seek to grow new markets, the strength and effectiveness of intellectual property rights protection and enforcement regimes as well as the promotion of fair access are keys to ensuring that the publishing industry can establish a legitimate foothold there.”

Allen noted that while publishers are actively engaged in numerous anti-piracy strategies, there is an escalating threat to the book and journal industry, particularly as access to online and mobile technologies increases. Persistent problems such as unauthorized large scale photocopying and now online book piracy impede the continued growth of U.S. companies that are investing in the production of high value content.

“While publishers are making significant strides in this battle, the weaknesses in intellectual property protection, as this report details, must be addressed so that copyright-related industries will continue to invest in content creation and in innovative delivery of such content to consumers worldwide,” Allen added.

The full report is available at www.iipa.com.

About AAP

The Association of American Publishers is the national trade association of the U.S. book publishing industry. AAP’s more than 300 members include most of the major commercial publishers in the United States, as well as smaller and non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly societies.

About IIPA

IIPA’s seven member associations are: the Association of American Publishers (AAP), the Business Software Alliance (BSA), the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), the Independent Film & Television Alliance (IFTA), the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). IIPA’s seven member associations represent over 1,900 U.S. companies producing and distributing materials protected by copyright laws throughout the world—all types of computer software.

2011 New York Book Festival Calls for Entries

NEW YORK/AUTHORLINK NEWS/February 10, 2011--The 2011 New York Book Festival has issued a call for entries to its annual event honoring books that deserve greater recognition from the world's publishing capital.

The 2011 New York Book Festival will consider published, self-published and independent publisher non-fiction, fiction, children’s books, young adult, how-to, audio/spoken word, comics/’zines, poetry, wild card (anything goes!), unpublished stories, science fiction, horror, photography/art, romance and biography/autobiography works.

Entries can be in English, Spanish, French or Italian and must be published on or after January 1, 2004. Our grand prize for the 2011 New York Book Festival Author of the Year is $1,500 and a flight to New York for our awards ceremony June 10 at the Algonquin Hotel. More festival details will be announced.

Additional information and registration forms are available online at www.newyorkbookfestival.com