Steven Tyler Act: A Nettle in the Nest of our Recorded Lives?
Now that every client has become a server, every reader a potential publisher, and everyday people like tuna fishermen have become reality TV stars, it’s reassuring to see some privacy pushback. Not...
View ArticleCanary in the Coal Mine?
Faced with Amazonian Losses, Indie Publisher Sells Books out of Car Trunk An independent small publisher called recently, seeking to maintain control of, and expand market reach for his successful...
View Article‘Breakout Books’ Category in Apple iBookstore Shines the Spotlight on...
Earlier this month the Apple iBookstore launched Breakout Books, a new category of the online store which features self- and independently-published books. Although the iBookstore has always accepted...
View ArticleAging Agile: Managing Mature Sites
In our rapidly evolving technology environment, the agile approach to proprietary software development can yield great results for publishers. As with most technology projects, the single greatest...
View ArticleForeign Rights Not Foreign Anymore
And the walls come tumbling down! As reported this week in Publishers Weekly, the Supreme Court handed copyright holders and publishers a global market haircut by limiting control over intellectual...
View ArticleThe Agility of Independence: The Rise of the Independent Book Store in the...
With almost every innovation in the publishing industry comes a cry to save the independent book store from impending doom. In the 1930s, the big threat was the paperback. In the 1970s, it was mall...
View ArticleCorporate Content Grab: The Elsevier Edition
Just weeks after Amazon’s highly controversial acquisition of GoodReads, major scientific publisher Elsevier has pulled a similar content grab by purchasing Mendeley, a cloud-based social media...
View ArticleIs that a Memex in your Pocket?
These days, with the ubiquity of mobile devices, it seems like we are living inside a kind of Memex. First envisioned by technology pioneer Vannevar Bush after World War II, a Memex is “a device in...
View ArticleWhy Does PI Matter?
In light of all the flurry of activity these days around the (re)selling of intangible digits, we might be wise to re-think the focus of our predominant, copy-based business model. In an economy of...
View ArticleGame Changer: ePublishing Software in the Hands of the Consumer, not the...
A recent partnership between ePublishing software company Impelsys and DataLore, Inc. turns digital publishing on its head. (…What else is new?) The two companies have partnered in order to offer...
View ArticleCloud Touting: A Moving Caution
As OBS packs up and starts to move our offices across town to premises recently vacated by Rockport Music, we’re making great strides towards paperlessness. Manuscripts, contracts, bank statements,...
View ArticleWe’re Moving!
After 20+ years in the same building, OBS is relocating to a new office! We are very excited about our new space in beautiful downtown Rockport. And while moving isn’t exactly a breeze – especially...
View ArticleMassachusetts New Software Services Tax
On July 31, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts passed a bill that established a sales tax of 6.25% on all software services offered in the state. Among the few states in the U.S. that have taxable...
View ArticleRevenge of the Nerds: Repeal of the New ‘Tech Tax’?
Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has gained the support of state lawmakers in promising to repeal the newly-passed software services tax. Included in a transportation bill that was passed earlier...
View ArticleHouse Repeals the Tech Tax; Will the Senate?
In Massachusetts, the controversial “Tech Tax” is still being debated. This past July, a transportation bill was passed that included a measure for adding a 6.25% tax on software and computer services...
View ArticleGov. Patrick Signs Tech Tax Repeal
Last Friday, Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick ended a two-month controversy by repealing the 6.25% “tech tax” levied on all computer and software services as part of a transportation bill passed in...
View ArticleLibrary of Congress Shuttered, Citizens’ Access to Universal Education...
When the Library of Congress published a free edition of Jefferson’s Legacy: A Brief History of the Library of Congress, Ralph Eubanks, former Director of Publishing at the Library, noted in his...
View ArticleOM or ADD?
Ever stop to wonder what’s behind the current Yoga craze? It seems like the number of practitioners has been growing by some 20% a year in the USA; “Statistics Brain” tells us that $27 billion was...
View ArticleWhat’s Old is New: Mandela Lives On in OBS Archives
At first glance, the OBS Archives Site appears to be an outdated list of hyperlinks with layout and formatting reminiscent of the early 1990s. At that time, Mosaic browsers and hyperlinks were...
View ArticleRichard Russo: A Writer’s Call to Arms
From the downward spiral of ebook prices to the major content grab of digital giants such as Amazon, Apple, and Google, the writer as we know it is seriously threatened. In a letter released by the...
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