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December 21, 2005
Footprints in time
Publishing of a sort, footprints on an ancient lakebed -- I love this stuff.
"We see children running between the tracks of their parents; the children running in meandering circles as their parents travel in direct lines,"
"It's a most extraordinary snapshot of a moment or several moments in the life of Aboriginal people living on the edge of the lake in western New South Wales 20,000 years ago."
Australian State Environment Minister Bob Debus, quoted on Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
Posted by matt at 6:34 PM | Comments (0)
Google Book Search now Google's 5th Most Popular Program
SearchEngineWatch via Publisher's Lunch.
The headline calls it a "service," though it's fine to call it a "program" for now. We'll wait to see if the courts decide it's a "service" or not.
This means the program already has more traffic than Froogle, Google Maps, and Google Earth.
Posted by matt at 8:32 AM | Comments (1)
December 15, 2005
Nice Prima Games article in the Sac Bee
I haven't posted much lately. I must be superstitious after my Halloween post. To date the Kings are below .500, my pre-ordered 360 hasn't arrived, and Oblivion was delayed an entire quarter the day after my post. Talk about blogging some bad luck! Must have been the Halloween tagline...
I don't typically link to sites requiring registration, but as this is local news I thought I'd point to a Sacramento Bee article about Prima Games guidebook publishing program. According to the article, Prima (a division of Random House since 2001) sold 220,000 copies of the Halo 2 book on the first day (!) of release. That's amazing.
We were deeply involved in the nascent game book industry at Waterside Productions, and our clients helped to establish Prima's list some 15 years ago, but once game companies realized the amount of money available, and as outside forces such as the Screen Actor's Guild demanded more control over the use of likenesses in games and ancillary material, each book became an expensive licensing proposition, and only Prima and Brady (and Sybex, to a lesser, though now growing, extent) stayed in the game.
Author revenues declined, as revenue flowed instead to exclusive licenses, and for authors most game titles became work-for-hire or limited royalty gigs.
Still, 220,000 copies in one day, that's amazing. A few highlights in case you don't click through: the article says Prima is #1 in the market with 5-7.5 million copies sold each year: they published 107 titles last year; and publisher Debra Kempker takes some credit for pushing the guide books into the game store channel, which, she says, doubled sales.
What's interesting to me is that the game book companies have done a decent job of sustaining their businesses even though many cheats and walkthroughs are available online and in user forums. Being shelved at the point of sale and aggressive co-marketing programs have a lot to do with that and is something that many reference publishers could emulate.
Posted by matt at 12:51 PM | Comments (1)
December 7, 2005
Fraudulent Agent Pleads Guilty
By way of Publisher's Marketplace, here's a link to the story of Martha Avery, an "agent" who bilked at least 200 aspiring writers of $700,000 in fees.
For more info on agent and publishing scams you can always check out Writer Beware.
Bottom line: beware of agents who ask for reading fees, editorial fees, or marketing fees. It's relatively easy to do your research, online and off, and find an agent with a demonstrable track record.
Posted by matt at 9:26 AM | Comments (0)