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 The long awaited and much discussed memoirs of former Prime Minister Tony Blair are now scheduled for publication in September, in time for the Christmas books market.
His book, titled The Journey, has been described by the publishers at Random House as very candid and inclusive of both his successes and his “disappointments” throughout an often controversial career.
Many are waiting eagerly to see what Mr. Blair has to say about his successor, Gordon Brown. The relationship between the two has been rather stormy; there is speculation as to whether Mr. Blair wishes he had promoted a different candidate for the office, and whether the current Prime Minister will suffer unkind cuts in his predecessor’s account of the events and decisions that took place.
Mr. Blair stands to make a lot of money for his book, including a large sum for the serialization by a British newspaper, so the publishers are not about to reveal any specifics. However, the opinion of those close to the author seems to be that he will not do much bloodletting, as that is just not his style.
Not a diary-keeper, Mr. Blair says he has been nagged by his publishers to finalize his notes, many of which have been written longhand during his frequent-flyer hours. When he left Downing Street, Mr. Blair said he wanted to get his new life going before hashing over the old one.
Now almost ready for publication, The Journey will undoubtedly provoke some animated discussions and probably some harsh criticism, but Mr. Blair has said he hopes to describe what that journey was really like.
 The latest work from Charles Pellegrino, Last Train to Hiroshima, has been dropped by Henry Holt and Company, its publisher, due to the fact that some so called facts in the book are now being hotly debated.
After the book first hit shelves in January when it was found that a source that contributed to the book claiming to be part of the US bombing mission of Hiroshima was not in fact anything to do with the bombing. Now, the US publisher has doubts that two other sources that are a primary part of the book were actually involved in the bombing.
When the book was first released it won glowing reviews with The New York Times referring to it as a wartime history gem. In fact, it spurred such attention that James Cameron even purchased the film rights to the book.
Controversy first arose when surviving members of the Hiroshima mission crew stated that Joseph Fucco, a main part of the book, was not actually on the aircraft, forcing Pellegrino to admit that he was fooled and quite stunned, given that Fuoco had backed up his story with photographs and papers.
From there, the publisher began to doubt that two other sources in the book, John MacQuitty a Jesuit scholar and Father Mattias who was said to have killed himself, actually lived the roles that are depicted in the book.
Despite the outrage, Cameron, who has worked with Pellegrino on a number of projects, has stood behind him stating that the author would not lie, so any problems with the validity of the book are based on misunderstandings.
 From the publisher’s point of view, consumers may be expecting too much (or too little) regarding the current and future price of books. While theoretically an e-book costs less to produce than a printed version of the same material, this is not necessarily the case.
According to a recent report in The New York Times, a breakdown of the relative costs involved in publishing a book in hardcopy as opposed to digital leaves less overall profit for the publisher, at least under current conditions. The example quoted shows the average cost to the consumer of a new hardcover best seller is about $26.00. Of that amount, about half goes to the publisher, but then there are additional costs such as cover design, copy editing and of course payment to the author. In this case the publisher winds up with just over $4.00, and there are still overhead costs like office space to be considered.
The new agreement between publishers and Apple’s iBookstore allots 30% of the sale price of an e-book to the hardware makers, leaving 70% for the publishers. From the gross profit, e-book publishers must pay to have the copy converted and typeset into digital form; marketing costs are also added in.
On the Amazon Kindle site, where hardcover best sellers are priced at $9.99, publishers are using the introduction of Apple’s iPad as leverage to raise their prices, and the competition in the bookselling market has become known in the industry as “the Amazon versus Apple E-book Wars.”
New from Penguin Books is the launch of Anthony E Zuiker’s ‘Dark Origins’ and the ‘Digi-Novel’ to the world of book publishing. The new Level 26 serial killer thriller books are complemented by a comprehensive online and digital component featuring exclusive cinematic content on a dedicated and fully interactive website.
The Level 26 site is an interactive extension of the book series, with the books and the site combining to form a ‘Digi-Novel’, a multi-platform experience that moves the reader from passages in the books to supporting videos and other content. Over the course of the book there are calls-to-action that direct the reader to the website to enter codes that unlock cyber-bridges.
These cinematic cyber-bridges take the experience to the next level, immersing the reader in the action and putting them inside the minds of a twisted torture-murderer and the man sent to take him down. The cyber-bridges have been developed by Anthony Zuiker and his CSI production team, and are designed to enrich the reader’s experience, but are not essential to read and enjoy the story as one would traditional thriller books.
Anthony E. Zuiker is the creator and executive producer of the most watched television show in the world, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, aired in more than 200 countries with an audience of 2 billion viewers. He produces all three editions of the CSI franchise: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami and CSI: NY. He said: “I am extremely pleased to introduce you to my next project, ‘Level 26: Dark Origins’. Level 26 takes the best features of books, film, and interactive digital technologies and rolls them all into a unique storytelling experience we’re calling the world’s first ‘Digi-Novel’. I had a world-class cast and crew working alongside me on this project, and couldn’t be more proud of the work they did, and the results we produced. I’ll see you on the Dark side.”
 Millions of readers and fans are mourning the death of Dick Francis, world famous author and champion jump jockey. He died at his home in the Cayman Islands on February 15th, 2010 at the age of 89.
Dick Francis has written a total of 44 books since his first novel, Dead Cert, was published in 1962. He has won numerous awards for his racetrack-based thrillers, including the Edgar Allen Poe Grand Master Award in 1996. His novels involved villainy and intrigue in the horseracing world, and he told a terrific story – and the good guy always won in the end.
Hoping to join the cavalry at the beginning of World War II, Francis instead became an RAF bomber pilot, and after the war, in 1948 he began a nine-year stretch as a jockey, winning 345 out of the 2,305 races ridden between 1948 and 1957.
In 1947 he married Mary Brenchley, who was a great help in his writing career from the very beginning. She even learned to fly when he was writing Flying Finish in 1966, and joined Dick and his friend Lester Piggott in starting an air taxi business a little later. The marriage thrived for 53 years; Mary died in 2000.
Dick Francis was a friend of royalty, and rode many horses for the Queen Mother. The collapse of her horse, Devon Loch, in the home stretch of the Grand National in 1956 remained a mystery to him and to the horse-racing world. In fact he said that event is what led to his hugely successful career as an author.
 Google Inc. is planning to head to take the US Department of Justice to court in order to see if they can get access to the rights of millions of books without breaking copyright or antitrust laws.
Google filed suit on Thursday defending a settlement they made for $125m with US publishers and authors a little over a year ago. According to Google, the settlement allows them to publish books without breaking the law.
According to Google, every suggestion from the US Justice Department has been followed expect for one. Among the contentions within the filing is a rebuttal from the Justice Department that the settlement will undermine copyright law and reduce the competition in the book market.
Google’s corporate rivals, the Open Book Alliance, rejected the arguments made by Google stating that even though the attorneys for Google have spun the truth of the settlement, the company will still allow Google exclusive access to books that it has scanned without permission.
In response Google has revised its plan in the hopes of persuading the US District Judge Denny Chin that the opponents of the settlement are wrong. Lawyers from the popular online company stated that copyright law is meant to promotion distribution and creation of works and that the settlement will help forward this purpose as much as any other distribute method in the history of copyright.
The decision to take on the US Justice Department is a big risk for Google given that it will raise the interest of antitrust regulators in Google and its advertising system, which is responsible for most of the revenue the company earns.
 Debut author Katie Davies won the Waterstone’s children’s book prize for a book entitled The Great Hamster Massacre. The plotline of the book focuses on two girls who set out to solve a murder mystery involving a slew of dead hamsters aimed at children between the ages of seven to ten, making it the first children’s book of that age group to win the prize.
Davies stated that she originally had older children in mind as the audience for her book, but was told that most children past the age of ten are no longer interested in hamsters. The author also stated that the story was inspired by events that happened while she was young when the mother of her hamsters ate its young.
It was the memory of this incident that inspired Davies to start to ask friends about their pet tales and fatal hamster stories.
Although this does not sound like the start of a children’s book, Davies took the stories and turned them into a book full of humour told from the touching point of view of a young girl inquisitive about her hamster’s deaths.
Davies defends the book’s content stating that it is not actually about death, but that she just realizes life is like that and it gives children a realistic book that is written about life and death.
The book is the first novel written by Davies although there is more to come since she has a four book dealing with happier scenarios and titles such as The Great Cat Conspiracy and The Great Rabbit Rescue.
Soon those who own the Kindle from Amazon will be able to view books along with their original illustrations of many classic and famous works by authors such as Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens, and Jane Austin. Many obscure artists will also see their books go up with full illustrations and original typeface.
For about £15 a piece many first edition printed paperback copies of classic works will be available for public purchase on the Kindle. The same books in their hardcopy form usually run around £250 a piece.
This is quite a change for Amazon, since most of their Kindle download selections are more contemporary authors because they are the most profitable.
Amazon will have some competition to contend with however given that Google Books already offers out of copyright books for free with funds from Microsoft.
Chief executive of the British Library Lynne Brindley stated that allowing historic books to be accessed for free can help revolutionize the way people access library resources.
The British Library and Microsoft have worked together for the past three years to scan classics, put them online and offer them free. Their focus at the moment are 19th century works since they are all out of copyright and can be thus be posted for free access.
Along with many of classic titles by famous authors, many of the downmarket books from the same era are also going to be posted soon so that avid readers have access to every type of work.
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The long awaited and much discussed memoirs of former Prime Minister Tony Blair are now scheduled for publication in September, in time for the Christmas books market.
