Archive Book biz news

* For most writers it is a long road to publication - they work on their idea, often for years, and then try and pitch it to publisher after publisher. However, in these shallow times, celebrities can sign book deals without having yet written the book and without any clear idea of what kind of book they will deliver - Demi Moore has been meeting with book publishers about the possibility of writing something. But the actress’ rep insists that any Moore-penned title will not be a memoir but some kind of novel.




* Amazon are to launch their own imprint to publish translated foreign language books -

The first book from the new AmazonCrossing imprint will be "The King of Kahel," 2008 winner of the prix Renaudot French literary prize. Its author, Tierno Monenembo, was born in Guinea and now lives in France. The book is due out in paperback and in an electronic Kindle version on Nov. 2.

Amazon said it will use customer reviews and other data from its websites around the world to choose AmazonCrossing titles.

* Author's Guild have stated that they are worried about eBook piracy. Author Scott Turow has recently taken over the Authors Guild, and has decided that ebook "piracy" is a "big problem" that has to be the focus. Perhaps next time the Authors Guild wants to show itself to be forward-looking and able to change with the times, it shouldn't put a 60+ year old lawyer in charge. Just a suggestion... Rather than saying that unauthorized file sharing is such a big problem, perhaps Turow should take a look at the music industry more closely. He seems to only be superficially aware of what's happening in that industry. Instead of recognizing that the industry wasted over a decade fighting what fans wanted, he seems to think that he can magically fight what every other industry has failed to fight. That doesn't seem like a strategy that has a high likelihood of success.