South Carolina votes to give Amazon sales tax break
By a 15-5 vote yesterday, the South Carolina Senate Finance Committee agreed to give Amazon "a break from collecting sales taxes after the company threatened to pull out of building a 1,200-job...
View ArticleLibrarians ecstatic over upcoming availability of Kindle books
Librarians are ecstatic over the upcoming integration of Amazons Kindle ereader with OverDrives library ebook lending platform, dubbing it "fabulous," and "great," while hoping for the "seamless...
View ArticleDetroit Public Library may close 18 out of 23 branches
Funded by property taxes that are projected to decline by 20-30% annually over the next four years, Detroit Public Library may close up to 18 of its 23 branches, and lay off as many as 57% of its...
View ArticleTypewriter not dead after all
Reports that typewriter manufacturer, Godrej & Boyce based in Mumbai, had closed led to many journalists and bloggers extrapolating on the story to report that the typewriter was no more. But,...
View ArticleAmazon, the SEC, IRS and South Carolina
In a regulatory filing Wednesday, Amazon said the Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into its sales tax dispute with Texas. The standoff began last September when the state assessed $269...
View Article'Godfather' Prequel to be published
Grand Central Publishing is planning the publication of a prequel to Mario Puzo's The Godfather. The Family Corleone by Ed Falco is based on an unproduced screenplay by Puzo, and is slated for...
View ArticleKindle to generate $5.4b revenue in 2011
According to an analyst at Caris & Co, this year the Kindle could generate over 5.4 billion in revenue in 2011 and as much as $7.9 billion in 2012. All figures are necessarily estimates, at best,...
View ArticleAudible set to greatly expand availability of audio books
Audible has launched the Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX), to enable "any professionally published book, new or old, to become a professionally produced audiobook." ACX has the potential to...
View ArticlePhilip Roth wins Man Booker International prize
Philip Roth has won the Man Booker International Prize. Booker judge Carmen Callil resigned in protest saying, "I don't rate him as a writer at all. I made it clear that I wouldn't have put him on the...
View ArticleSouth Carolina reverses decision, will give Amazon sales tax break
Amazon appears to have won what South Carolina newspaper, The State, calls a "stunning reversal" in its battle to get a sales tax exemption in return for building a distribution center in Lexington...
View ArticleBritish bookstore chain Waterstone's sold to A&NN
HMV Group has sold British bookstore chain Waterstone's to A&NN Group for 53 million (UK pounds). Waterstones was established in 1982 by Tim Waterstone and currently employs about 4500 staff mainly...
View ArticleBritish publishers begin "buddying" scheme to support local libraries
Random House and Bloomsbury have begun "buddying" programs to support their local libraries and library authorities. Random House deputy group sales director Ed Christie, who is pioneering the scheme...
View ArticleLiberty Media offer to buy Barnes and Noble
Liberty Media has made an offer to buy Barnes and Noble for $1.02 billion. They are offering $17 a share for BN, which was 20% higher than the shares' trading level yesterday. In after-market trading,...
View ArticleAmazon focus on mainstream publishing arena
Amazon has hired Laurence Kirshbaum, former TimeWarner CEO, to head up its relatively new New York based publishing operation. The announcement has dampened the spirits of many publishers currently...
View ArticleSouth Carolina agrees to caveated sales-tax exemption for Amazon
In the ongoing saga of whether Amazon will or won't build a distribution center in South Carolina ... last week the South Carolina Senate approved a measure that will not require Amazon to collect...
View ArticleCreditors ask judge to pull the plug on Borders Group USA
The unsecured creditors' committee in the Borders Group bankruptcy has asked the judge in the case not to accept Borders's request for a four-month extension of the mid-June deadline for filing a plan...
View ArticleUK's largest ever poetry festival planned for Olympics
Poets from the 205 Olympic nations are competing to be part of "Poetry Parnassus", the UK's largest ever poetry festival, which will take place from 26 June to 2 July 2012 as part of the Olympic...
View ArticleCalifornia State Assembly passes internet sales tax bill
Earlier this week, the California State Assembly followed a number of other states in passing a bill "aimed at closing a legal loophole that allows internet retailers to avoid collecting California...
View ArticleApple introduce iCloud
Yesterday, Apple reported that about 130 million books have been downloaded from the iBookstore. This statement was followed by the announcement of Apple's iCloud, "a free new service available that...
View ArticleTea Obreht, youngest author to win Orange Prize for The Tiger's Wife
25-year-old Serbian-American author Tea Obreht has won the 2011 Orange Prize for Fiction for her debut novel The Tiger's Wife.. Set in the Balkans, the book tells the story of a young doctor tracing...
View Article