Category Archives: Publishing

News Publishing

The Apple Tablet

January 19, 2010 – 8:50 am

MacTablet 1
Creative Commons License photo credit: Jeroen Onstenk

Apple has invited a selected group of journalists to a 27 January event where they will launch at least one new product. According to Wired:

Apple has sent out press invitations for a product event to be held at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater.

The invitation reads, “Come see our latest creation.” The event is scheduled to begin 10 a.m., Jan. 27.

Rumour concerning the product they intend to launch has been rife. However, now that the event is confirmed, it seems foolish to ignore some of the more credible stories. The Wall Street Journal reports today that:

HarperCollins Publishers is negotiating with Apple Inc. to make electronic books available for the introduction of a new tablet device from Apple, according to people familiar with the situation, posing a challenge to Amazon.com Inc.

HarperCollins is expected to set the prices of the e-books, which would have added features, with Apple taking a percentage of sales. Details haven’t been ironed out.

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News Publishing

TAF Publishing To Launch The Irish Writers', Authors' and Poets' Handbook

January 18, 2010 – 2:18 pm
The Irish Writers', Authors' and Poets' Handbook

The Irish Writers’, Authors’ and Poets’ Handbook

The Author’s Friend Publishing, the publishing division of the recently founded assisted publishing outfit, The Author’s Friend, is to publish a guide to writers, poets, agents and publishers in Ireland.

The book will be published in February 2010.

The company hopes it will be a:

directory of publishers, literary agents, bookshops, book distributors, writer’s groups, literary organisations, festivals and events, libraries, book clubs, creative writing courses, newspapers, magazines, journals [and] literary blogs

The guide will retail at €12.99 and is being offered for sale at a discounted price of €9.99 for pre-orders from those who wish to have their details included in the guide. Submission forms to the guide are here.

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News Publishing

Amazon Extends DTP Publishing To International Publishers & Authors

January 18, 2010 – 10:12 am

My Poor Kindle 2
Creative Commons License photo credit: toejamnotearl

Amazon has opened up its Kindle Digital Text Platform (DTP) to international authors and independent publishers. Although it is one of the easiest ways for a small publisher to access the rapidly growing kindle market, content sellers will receive only 35% of the selling price with Amazon retaining 65%.

For more read Techcrunch and ITPortal’s coverage.

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News Publishing

Irish Publishers Embrace Twitter

January 18, 2010 – 8:45 am

Although Twitter (wikipedia entry) has existed since 2006 and despite the fact that many publishers worldwide have begin to use Twitter a s tool for selling, Irish Publishers have been slow to use the communication tool as a sales or promotional platform.

To date the most active publishing tweet stream has been Irish Language publisher Cló Iar-Chonnachta, Cork based Collins Press and Belfast based Blackstaff.

However, Poolbeg Press, having joined in May 2009, started sending out several tweets last week and Liberties Press have also begin to update their twitter stream with more regularity. The History Press, Ireland (the new name for Nonsuch Ireland) also began tweeting last week following the rebranding of their imprint and the launch of their new website.

For a full list of Irish Publishers on Twitter, follow Irish Publishing News’ list on twitter.

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News Publishing

Barry O'Callaghan Gets Coverage

January 18, 2010 – 8:30 am

Following some very positive coverage in the Irish Times last week, Barry O’Callaghan was given a less pleasing covering by the Sunday Independent:

BARRY O’Callaghan bet the ranch and lost big time. The Clongowes-educated financier was briefly worth “well north of a billion” before he was 40. Ever so briefly. Now with the implosion of his debt-laden publishing firm EMPG he is back to being an ordinary wage slave.

In another story, the Sunday Independent also covered the well-known Irish people who have been hurt financially by the crisis at EMPG:

Superquinn founder Feargal Quinn is thought to have invested up to €16m in Barry O’Callaghan’s EMPG publishers, which was involved in crisis talks over its €8bn debt mountain last week. Mr Quinn, who banked up to €400m from the sale of his Superquinn empire to property developers at the peak of the boom, is understood to have been one of the largest Irish investors in Mr O’Callaghan’s publishing outfit.

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News Publishing

Arena Tackles E-Publishing

January 14, 2010 – 12:57 pm

Arena, the daily arts show on RTÉ tackled Digital and E Publishing last night in a segment with Luke Clancy.

Tying together the strands of The Google Book Settlement and Kindle and Ebooks, Clancy presented a simplified model of the future of publishing and books (he has a grá for Audio books I suspect) but the segment presented most of the threads floating in the wind right now and it is worth a listen.

The segment will hopefully be split out so you can listen to it, but until later today it can be listened back to here it starts at 17.30 minutes in and ends at about 27.30 minutes.

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News Publishing

Education Media Publishing Group Morning Update

January 14, 2010 – 8:46 am

UPDATED: LINKS FOR FRIDAY 15th JANUARY 2010

Barry O’Callaghan (CEO of EMPG) spoke on Morning Ireland this morning. The Audio is at the end of the RTÉ article.

Wednesday saw the news leak out slowly and some of the media outlets you might have expected to report in Educational Media Publishing Group‘s troubles didn’t.

This morning most of them seem to have made up for that. What is clear is that the massive debts are to be restructured leaving a group of Irish investors seriously out of pocket.

In a radio interview on RTÉ on Thursday 14th January Barry O’Callaghan confirmed that the group was restructuring and that there would be a loss of value in the order of SEVERAL BILLION. He was personally losing several hundred million.

I’ve updated this list of stories with the newest links:
read more »

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Books & Authors Publishing

When Will Digital Impact In Ireland?

January 11, 2010 – 9:30 am

My Poor Kindle 2
Creative Commons License photo credit: toejamnotearl

Despite the availability of Sony’s Reader and Amazon’s Kindle, digital publishing doesn’t seem to have made a huge impact in Ireland. I say seem because there is the possibility that sales have occurred through sites and companies unknown to us or who simply don’t split Irish sales of ebooks out of their larger operations. We could in fact be seeing significant sales just not knowing about them.

With the huge number of releases of ereaders and devices at the Consumer Electronics Show this week however, it is quite clear that the electronics industry is keen to push consumers towards ereading, if only as a way to sell devices.

In order to get some idea of where Irish people stand on ebooks, ereaders and digital reading, we’ve decided to release a survey into the wilds of the internets (you can fill it out below or take it on a separate page here). Please take some time to fill it out, we will report all the results towards the end of the month.

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Books & Authors News Publishing

O'Brien Press Partners With Kelloggs

January 6, 2010 – 7:28 pm

In what I think is a first for an Irish Publisher (correct me if I am wrong), O’Brien Press has teamed up with Kelloggs and Hughes & Hughes:

every pack of Ireland’s Loudest Breakfast Cereal is promoting reading at the moment, with a selection of six O’Brien Press books on the front and back of the box. There is a lovely website to follow soon and an official launch at the start of February.

The offer is pretty good with Rice Crispies eaters collecting vouchers from cereal packets which:

can be redeemed against the books for a small postage and packing fee. One recession-friendly change to this pattern is that the Storytime books can also be collected directly (at no charge) from any Hughes & Hughes bookshop, where the books will be prominently displayed.

It is a great list of books too:

    Boo and Bear by Enda Wyley
    Bertie Rooster by Maddie Stewart
    Granny’s Teeth by Brianóg Brady Dawson
    Mad Grandad and the Mutant River by Oisín McGann
    Hazel Wood Girl by Judy May
    Epic by Conor Kostick

The O’Brien blog post mentions a forthcoming website so keep your eyes peeled for same.

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Books & Authors Publishing

So What's The Costa?

January 5, 2010 – 4:17 pm
Award Image

The Costa Book Awards Logo

Good Question
It used to be the Whitbread Award named after the brewers, who now call themselves a hospitality company, and it started way back in 1971. For a full list if winners, you should read this list here.

In 2006 Costa Coffee came on board as the main sponsor and succeeded in raising the profile of the award at least in popular terms. It certainly made an incredible impact with the choices of judges and the success of some of he more recent winner. There is a PDF of all judges since 1971 here.

Is It All About The Money?
It is that impact in sales that really makes Costa impressive and important. Beginning with Stef Penny‘s Tenderness of Wolves which became a runaway success, winning a Costa has been seen as an almost assured ticket to huge sales.

Penny stormed the charts following her win securing in many ways the future of her publisher Quercus (who have also seen the enormous success with Stieg Larsson). When Sebastian Barry won the Costa for his novel Secret Scripture in 2009 he went on to enormous success. He sold some 70,000 copies in Ireland and over 300,000 in the UK.

Colm Toibin’s win might not result in such a bracing result because he has a somewhat more literary profile that might put off more mass market buyers. On the other hand, Brooklyn has already been selling fairly well and this may well push his book that little bit more.

It seems to me that the 2009 awards have so far been well received (the Overall Prize is yet to be awarded) and that bodes well for the press coverage essential to reinforce this win.

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