Every day Poets & Writers Magazine scans the headlines—from publishing reports to academic announcements to literary dispatches—for all the news that creative writers need to know. Here are today's stories:
Titles by Joseph Heller, Iris Murdoch, and William Styron are in the offing from Open Road, a new e-book publisher founded by former HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman that will focus on reviving the backlists of major authors (New York Times).
Described in Frankfurt today by a company spokesperson as a “buy anywhere, read anywhere” e-book venture, Google Editions is expected to launch worldwide next year (Bookseller).
Anti-plagiarism software normally used to nab cheating students has suggested that a play about Edward III—published anonymously in 1596—may have been coauthored by William Shakespeare (Times).
In other Bard-related news, a physicist has donated his $2 million Shakespeare collection—which includes books likely read by the playwright himself—to UCLA’s Clark Library (Los Angeles Times).
Last weekend’s D is for Digitize conference in New York City was marked by disagreements over the “public trust responsibilities” raised by the Google Book Search settlement (Library Journal). Also at issue: the possibility that institutional subscriptions to Google’s massive database could come with advertising (Library Journal).
Penguin announced the launch today of a new Hong Kong-based English-language list that will focus on works from and about China (Press Release).
The international debut of Amazon’s Kindle has some experts worried about the fate of territorial publishing rights and the effects of pricing disparities (Publishers Weekly).
While digital sales still account for only a fraction of publishing revenues, industry professionals surveyed by the Frankfurt Book Fair have suggested that the tide will turn by 2018 (Bookseller).
The online edition of Vanity Fair has excerpted a short story from the late Kurt Vonnegut’s upcoming collection Look at the Birdie (Random House), due out October 20.
South Korean electronics giant LG has unveiled a solar-powered e-book reader (Guardian).
