News Roundup: Publishers Push to Meet Russert Book Demand, Seth Godin's Kindle Analysis, BN.com Redesign Nets Big Traffic

Publishers Pushing to Meet Russert Book Demand

Random House and Hyperion Books are rushing to meet demand for Tim Russert’s two books, Wisdom of Our Fathers and Big Russ & Me. From Newsday:

Carol Schneider, executive director of publicity at Random House, reports that the company is immediately printing 100,000 paperbacks of “Wisdom” that began shipping yesterday [6/16/08].

Likewise, Hyperion Books has gone back to press for another 100,000 copies of “Big Russ,” according to Beth Gebhard, executive director of publicity. (Continue reading)

Seth Godin: Community and Interactivity Would Benefit Kindle

Seth Godin weighs in with random thoughts on the Kindle, including:

The Kindle does a fine job of being a book reader, and a horrible job of actually improving the act of reading a book.

Godin says the Kindle reading experience — particularly with non-fiction titles — would benefit from reader recommendations, Digg-style voting, and hyperlinks. (Continue reading)

BN.com Redesign Nets Significant Traffic Increase

Barnes and Noble is seeing positive results from its 2007 Web site overhaul. From Publishers Weekly:

… in 2007, the online arm of the retailer posted a 10.1% sales increase, helped by a strong fourth quarter, and the solid results continued into the first period of 2008: B&N.com posted a 7.2% sales increase, compared to an increase of 1.1% for the stores. (Continue reading)

tags: , , , , , , ,