Hard Times Send Books Straight to Paperback

...if an Apple e-reader doesn't kill the Kindle first

(NEWSER) - With the Kindle, Amazon's Jeff Bezos may be poised “ to do to book publishers what Steve Jobs did to the music industry,” writes Adam Penenberg in Fast Company: rapidly create a market from nothing and use it to rule over publishers with an iron fist, perhaps even “phasing them out completely.” Amazon’s e-book revenue should reach $1.2 billion by next year, an analyst says, but to rule, Bezos needs to "nail down distribution of e-books, turn them into a mass-market phenomenon," and set e-book prices low enough—and Apple could spell trouble. More»

(NEWSER) - The follow-up to Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code should finally see the light of day later this year, the New York Observer reports. Publisher Doubleday says The Lost Symbol will hit shelves Sept.15, 4 years after originally hoped. The first print run will be 5 million copies, the publisher’s largest ever. “This is one of the most anticipated publications in recent history, and it was well worth the wait,” said a Doubleday exec. More»

It's fizzy, too—and comes complete with recipes and regrets

(NEWSER) - Recipes for "Morning After Pumpkin Bread" and "Ineffectual Eggplant Parmigiana" should clue readers in that Giulia Melucci's I Loved, I Lost, I Made Spaghetti is no how-to on gaining a man's heart through his stomach, Joyce Wadler writes for the New York Times. Melucci—"a former publishing publicist who is hilarious, good-looking, and as restrained as Joan Rivers on crack"—recounts her checkered love life in a style Wadler dubs "Sex and the City with recipes." More»

Niffenegger wrote surprise 2003 hit The Time Traveler's Wife

(NEWSER) - Defying reports that publishers are in the poorhouse, Audrey Niffenegger, author of the huge bestseller, The Time Traveler’s Wife, has received a nearly $5 million advance for a new novel, Her Fearful Symmetry, the New York Times reports. Her agent said the whopping payout from Scribner, a unit of Simon & Schuster, is for a manuscript that's already complete. More»

Until outfits learn to cope with digital challenges, it'll be a tough go for writers

(NEWSER) - The publishing industry has been battered in the past month, as large houses hemorrhage editors and consolidate divisions, leading some to wonder if literary publishing will ever be the same, Jason Boog writes on Salon. The list of ills is long: too-high advances paid to a dwindling number of sure bets; corporate ownership hit hard by the economic crisis; a steep drop in sales. More»