Donald B. Marron, visiting professor at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute and president of Marron Economics LLC., writing on April 22, 2010, in the Christian Science Monitor said, “By the end of last year, Amazon accounted for an estimated eighty per cent of all electronic-book sales, and $9.99 seemed to be established as the price of an e-book. Publishers were panicked. David Young, the chairman and C.E.O. of Hachette Book Group USA, said, ‘The big concern—and it’s a massive concern—is the $9.99 pricing point. If it’s allowed to take hold in the consumer’s mind that a book is worth ten bucks, to my mind it’s game over for this business.’ ”

How long can this go on? JK

Regarding e-books, Klinkenborg confesses, “The truth is that I need. . .help to keep reading, especially as much as I always have. The question isn’t what will books become in a world of electronic reading. The question is what will become of the readers we’ve been—quiet, thoughtful, patient, abstracted—in a world where interactive can be too tempting to ignore.”

Are there so many bells-and-whistles distractions inherent in electronic books that our abilities as readers are diminished? JK

Wanted: Purchasing manager for educational publisher. Computer skills required.

“I hope this email finds you well. I wanted to share the following role with you in case you know anyone in your area that has solid experience in the educational book publishing arena.

“I am representing an international multi-billion dollar company. They are a highly regarding organization within the managed services space.

“I am seeking a Vendor Manager, Production Planning who will be part of the Marketing Solutions Division, N.A.

“The Vendor Manager will be supporting a significant long term client engagement and will be based out of Chicago, IL. For the right individual, candidates in the Boston area will also be considered and is a possible location.

“The focus of the role is capacity planning, looking in-depth at the capacity of the current supplier base and ensuring they have the correct mixture in place in terms of vendors and ability to supply. This individual will be responsible for making sure they are appropriately leveraging that spend based on capacity and the best price.

“Requirements:

“Candidates are required to have an in-depth educational publishing print background with knowledge of supplier base and have the ability to articulate key vendor players within the same space.

“It is imperative that this person come from/understands the manufacturing end of the business and be able to hit the ground running.

“Potential candidates have to be extremely analytical as this is very much a capacity planning role. It is essential that these individuals understand how much allocation and capacity the suppliers have and be able to calculate how much used at any given month.

“In-depth knowledge of Microsoft Excel is also essential and being accustomed to using pivot tables in addition to V-looks ups(advanced filtering). Some exposure to SAP is a plus but not essential.

“I look forward to hearing from you.

“Best regards,”

—

Phew!

JK

Hasselbeck continues to encounter some problems with her book as an open letter written by Elaine Monarch, executive director of the Celiac Disease Foundation, makes the rounds of blogs that discuss the disease. Monarch says, “While it is important to call attention to celiac disease, the information must be accurate—the inaccuracies in this book are potentially dangerous and detrimental to celiacs…”

This seems to be a case in which all the losers are winners and all the winners are losers. JK

Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner Karin Perry cautions, “It takes only one—one parent, one family, one community member—to deprive [a child’s] right to read.” Your child. My child. All children.

Perry points out 85 books—most are commonly known to all of us—that have been placed on the American Library Association’s Banned Book list at the insistence of  zealots who are bent on preserving the moral purity of our youth, a purity promoted by self-appointed guardians who are determined to save our young people from (gasp!) ideas that differ from those of their protectors. Check out this list of banned books, and you’ll probably be surprised and disheartened to find just how much objectionable material you’ve been reading during the past several years. JK

Students read a lot of books, right? And they’ve got money to burn. All we have to do is get our work adopted as required textbooks, and we’ll be rich. Students always buy whatever books they’re assigned for every course. We all know that. If we format our books for the Kindle DX, we’ll really corner the market because young readers love any kind of new technology.

Well . . . Maybe not so much.

Take a look at The Battle of College Textbooks Begins Anew, SurveyU’s examination of college students’ textbook buying habits. You may be surprised. Graphic by wordle.net. JK

There wasn’t an empty seat in the room as two-time IWOC past president Jim Kepler told a rapt audience how we could take material we might have already written, put it together in book form, publish it, and then use the book to promote ourselves for other jobs. He had a solution for those who don’t have enough related clips too. It started with “Take a box…” (or a virtual box, i.e., a computer folder). From there he gave us step-by-step instructions on how to compile materials on our topic of interest, how to define our chapters and our focus, and so on. Kepler also had a myriad of tips for shameless promotion using our newly minted book. Hint: if you’ve never written a press release, now would be a good time to start. He advised starting small by sending press releases to local civic and social organizations and offering to be a speaker. From there, you can parlay the little fish into bigger fish. To find out more about this excellent presentation, you can download or read the detailed handout on the members-only landing page.

[Not an IWOC member? Click on http://www.adamspress.com/, add a note under “Comments,” and I’ll send you the article and handouts. JK]

It concerns a book written by Susan Hassett and produced by xLibris. (xLibris is associated with Random House but Random claims to have no oversight of its operations. Strange in itself.) Seems Ms. Hassett wrote a book about celiac disease and sent a copy to Elisabeth Hasselbeck, a “spitfire co-host” of ABC’s The View. Ms. Hassett is now suing Ms. Hasselbeck and others for plagiarism/copyright infringement, claiming Ms. Hasselbeck’s recently released book, The G-Free Diet, about her personal experience with celiac disease contains many similarities to Ms. Hassett’s book, Living with Celiac Disease, which was self-published a year earlier.

The story is fascinating on so many counts.

1. While several passages appear similar in both books, those claims, in my opinion, seem, at best, open to question. Isn’t  it reasonable, for example, to assume that any book on this topic might contain a section that asks the question, “What is celiac disease”? Not to Ms. Hassett, who claims it as her own.

2. I can’t help wondering whether anyone, the author herself or xLibris, made an attempt to edit Ms. Hassett’s work before printing it. The various passages quoted by her attorney in a letter to “ABC Broadcast Company” [sic] are filled with grammatical errors and misspellings.

3. Ms. Hassett may have found a kindred soul in her attorney, publicly reprimanded (by the state of Massachusetts) Richard C. Cunha, Esq., who obviously shares her own disregard for careless writing. Was it really both authors or Mr. Cunha himself who came up with “outer isles of the supermarket”?

4. The oh-so-accommodating Mr. Cunha says in his letter to ABC: “In order to avoid serious embarrassment to all concerned please be advised that I am authorized to consider an out of court settlement on behalf of my client, Susan Hassett.” Wattaguy.

5. Ms. Hassett’s suit has apparently produced a win-win publicity situation both for her and for Ms. Hasselbeck (and their respective books), at least according to Starz Life, yet another gossip site: “Hasset claims that along with the book she sent Hasselbeck a homemade cooking video, a personal note, a newspaper article and a business card.  (Nothing like a packet that screams ‘let me come on the view please.’)”

What will happen? My guess is Ms. Hasselbeck will pay up without admitting guilt, and Mr. Cunha will get his cut. Everybody looks bad, and they all win.  JK

Don’t.

Rubin’s 13 Tips for Actually Getting Some Writing Done are among the best I’ve seen. One I especially like is “[T]ry going for a walk and reading a really good book.” Hard to do simultaneously perhaps, and that walk stuff may be way too healthful for some, but reading a book is wonderfully therapeutic for sufferers of writer’s block. There’s something about allowing thoughts to percolate in the back of your mind while reading the well crafted words of a good writer that actually helps you discover precisely what you want to write and how you want to express it.

Take a look at Rubin’s tips. It’s well worth the read. JK