Ahead of last year’s FutureBook Innovation Workshop, we published our ‘ten challenges to innovation in publishing’.  Nearly one year on, what are the new challenges to publishers when it comes to digital innovation? At the FutureBook Innovation Workshop in Association with The Literary Platform speakers will be demonstrating how they are currently dealing with some of these challenges – but here are some outline thoughts ahead of the event. 

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• Amazon Publishing reveals Breakthrough Novel Award finalists
• ChiZine accepting terror and supernatural fiction submissions
• Plagiarism controversy hits poetry community again
• Children’s publisher Barefoot Books leaves Amazon
• Association of American Publishers merging with the Association of Educational Publishers

Nicholas Blincoe on last night's PEN auction, where JK Rowling's first book sold for a record amount.    

Here is our quick guide for your BEA preparations: - Our free ebook Buzz Books 2013: Fall/Winter is the biggest galley giveaway you'll see, featuring substantial excerpts from 40 forthcoming book (running about 750 pages in all). It includes work from many featured BEA speakers, such as Amy Tan, Jonathan…

Doubleday reports to us that Dan Brown's INFERNO sold 1 million units in the US and Canada in its first five days on sale, through Saturday, in print and ebook sales combined. The company did not break out the distribution between formats, but the Nielsen Bookscan count would indicate that…

Penguin's hard-to-fathom delay in settling the state and class-action lawsuits over ebook pricing (after settling with the Department of Justice in December 2012) was down to the wire, with the company forced to join in the trial starting June 3. But on Wednesday, it was announced that the publisher has…

A little more than a year ago, EL James spun what originally began life as Twilight fan fiction into one of the most successful book series ever. Now Amazon.com is tapping into the energetic world of fan fiction with the first broad, legally licensed, commercial model. Wednesday morning the company…

The new Story app from Disney will let you create a simple digital book to share with friends and family.

It is a great way to create something new with the kid in your life. AppNewser has more:

The app accesses a user’s camera roll and the user can add photos and videos to the app to create a story. Users can write captions and create spreads of their various pictures and content. They can add pages of text, themes and layouts. These photo stories are designed to be shared. So a user can simply tap to share with friends on Facebook or via email. The photos are not public, and a friend or family member will need an invitation to view a story. Stories can also be embedded onto a website or blog. The app is also synced with iCloud, so that users can back up all of their stories.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

This week, Random House is hiring an executive editor for Crown Publishing, and Bedford/St. Martin’s is seeking a marketing manager. Meanwhile, Hachette needs an associate art director, and St. Martin’s Press is on the hunt for a senior publicist. Get the scoop on these openings and more below, and find additional just-posted gigs on Mediabistro.

• Executive Editor Random House (New York, NY)
• Marketing Manager Bedford/St. Martin’s (New York, NY)
• Associate Art Director Hachette Book Group (New York, NY)
• Senior Publicist St. Martin’s Press (New York, NY)
• Publicist Brown Books Publishing Group (New York, NY)

Find more great publishing jobs on the GalleyCat job board. Looking to hire? Tap into our network of talented GalleyCat pros and post a risk-free job listing. For real-time openings and employment news, follow @MBJobPost.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

‘Authors should become more involved in the industry and take greater responsibility as part of a wider ecosystem,’ Ann Patchett told The Bookseller recently. ‘“If you had asked me two years ago, I would not have thought it was my responsibility. But I do think authors need to get involved with all sort of aspects of publishing and health of the publishing industry,” she said.’

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We’ve had a number of job changes in the publishing world this week.

Cal Morgan will leave his post as publisher at HarperCollins’ It Books imprint to serve as senior vice president and executive editor at the Harper division. Morgan will continue on as editorial director for Harper Perennial and Harper paperbacks.

Throughout his career, he has worked on projects with several celebrity authors such as Amy Poehler, Alan Cumming, and Tom Piazza.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

MessageMe, a new app that rethinks the idea of an SMS by letting users send music, videos, photos, drawings and even location information, is taking off pretty quickly.

The company revealed this week that in its first 10 days, the app had been downloaded 1 million time. In the first 75 days, the app was downloaded 5 million times. The success is gaining the company some funding. They have just raised $10 million in venture capital funding.

Here is more about the company’s vision from a blog post written by the co-founders:

While communication means something different to everyone, whether it be our users in North America, Europe or Asia, or 15-20 year old males or females, what remains the same is the desire for freedom of expression.  Pencil and paper revolutionized communication by allowing for more accessible and ubiquitous mediums of expression; we’ve set out to build a service that accentuates this natural style on connected devices.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Penguin will pay $75 million in damages and “costs and fees to resolve all antitrust claims relating to eBook pricing”–settling with 33 state attorneys general and consumers in a suit led by Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro.

The suit revolved around allegations of price fixing with the agency model for eBook pricing. The publisher issued a brief statement:

Penguin has also committed to the State Attorneys General to abide by the same injunctive relief as previously agreed in a separate settlement with the Department of Justice. In anticipation of reaching this agreement, Pearson had made a $40m provision for settlement in its 2012 accounts. An incremental charge will be expensed in Pearson’s 2013 statutory accounts as part of the accounting for the Penguin Random House joint-venture.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Travel publisher Lonely Planet has partnered with digital publishing company Inkling to create a new series of enhanced eBooks for iOS devices called Best Trips.

The eBook editions of the Best Trips series are interactive and dynamic. Like their print counterparts, they offer travelers suggestions for people who want to explore a region by car. They include recommendations on hotels and restaurants, as well as for fun activities. The eBook editions allow users to click to call or click to book online, and they feature interactive maps, and a weather forecasting tool. Each eBook has 30 trips that range from two days to two weeks.

The collection includes travel guides to California, Italy, New England, Ireland and France, among others. They are currently available for $14.99 through Inkling or as individual apps in Apple’s App Store.

 

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The Gracie Awards were held last night in Los Angeles, celebrating “outstanding programming for, by and about women.”

I battled my way through the crowded red carpet, getting some writing advice from two authors at the show. Shaun Robinson took the “Outstanding Host” award last night for her work on Access Hollywood, but she shared some simple advice for writers:

I wrote a book on girls and self-esteem called Exactly as I Am. It’s about giving girls advice about believing in yourself and dreaming big. It’s all about this: Every no brings you closer to a yes. Every no puts you closer to a yes. If one person tells you no, that’s one door. There’s another door that’s going to open.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Barnes & Noble is rumored to be updating its Nook tablet with email and web browsing capabilities as early as next month. The news came from an anonymously leaked email.

In addition to email and web browsing capabilities, the new update for Nook Simple Touch will also include a fresh new app store. Currently, only the Kindle fire tablet has email capabilities, so this could potentially boost flagging sales of the hardware. In addition to the software update, the company has already resorted to giving away its tablets in various promotions. given the tablet’s low price and new, minimal capabilities, Nook might be a great investment for those whose main interest is reading eBooks.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

In the latest installment of So What Do You Do?, Mediabistro talked to Sara Shepard, author of the bestselling YA series Pretty Little Liars and The Lying Game. The prolific writer, who has published 20 books in eight years, talks about getting her series optioned as TV shows, how she got into YA and how any writer can get more words onto the page:

“I am a big outliner. For my adult book, The Visibles, I did not outline, and it took me two years to write because I just didn’t outline and I had no path,” she said. “The other thing is, because I have really crazy deadlines, I have to write everyday. So, I can’t just sit there and stare at the page. So what I usually do is, I write something. Even if it’s bad, even if I go back later, and I’m like, ‘This is such a bad chapter, and I’m going to have to revise it,’ having words down is better than having nothing.

For the full interview, read So What Do You Do, Sara Shepard, Author of Pretty Little Liars?

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Amazon Publishing has reached out to fan fiction writers with Kindle Worlds, a platform allowing authors to write fan fiction based on someone else’s work and share royalties with the rights holders.

Warner Bros. Television Group’s Alloy Entertainment division will work with Amazon on the program, letting fans write about Cecily von Ziegesar‘s Gossip Girl, Sara Shepard‘s Pretty Little Liars and L.J. Smith‘s Vampire Diaries. Fan fiction writers can publish their own work about these stories in the Kindle Store. The program launches in June. Here’ more about the payment structure:

Amazon Publishing will pay royalties to both the rights holders of the Worlds and the author. The standard author’s royalty rate (for works of at least 10,000 words) will be 35% of net revenue. As with all titles from Amazon Publishing, Kindle Worlds will base net revenue off of sales price—rather than the lower, industry standard of wholesale price—and royalties will be paid monthly.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Hardest Game Ever 2 joins the top free Android app this week at No. 10, according to research from Google Play. The gaming app from Organnose Studio measures users reaction time through quick puzzles.

Below, we’ve listed the top free Android apps of the week. The list links to Google Play’s research about the individual apps, including user reviews.

As part of Mediabistro’s Media App Summit which took place last year, we spotlight the top free apps every week–helping our readers discover, enjoy and analyze successful content. continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Novelist Iain M. Banks shared an update on his condition with fans this week. The novelist recently revealed that he is battling advanced cancer with doctors predicting he has ”several months” to live.

He has worked to write admiring letters to his favorite writers, including M. John Harrison and Alasdair Gray. He added:

I want to say thank you to all of you for your messages, your memories, your wit, your sympathy and your kind, supportive thoughts. It means a lot, almost more than I can say, and – whatever type or size of screen I read the comments on – I come away from the computer, laptop, iPad or phone with a happy smile on my face.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.