BEA begins
I didn’t get a chance to stop by BEA yesterday — there was too much to do around the office. (Plus, I couldn’t for the life of me find a list of the panels on the website beyond the sparse “Events at a Glance” PDF.) Which was a pity. But fortunately, Publishers Weekly was there, so I’m linking to their coverage.
Here are some panels that caught my eye:
Combating Print and Digital Piracy of Publishers’ Works (AAP)
Giving it Away: When Free ebooks Make Sense — And When They Don’t
I’ve been very interested in finding out more about ebook giveaways — on the one hand, you’d think that a free ebook would lead to fewer sales, but that hasn’t seemed to be the case. Or has it? Peter Balis, director of online sales at Wiley, and Brent Lewis, v-p for digital and Internet at Harlequin, discussed “rules” for giveaways and talked about cases in which free ebooks have both helped and hurt sales.
Richard Nash, formerly publisher at Soft Skull Press, and Dedi Felmen, formerly a senior editor at Simon & Schuster, discussed their new venture, Round Table, a mash up of sorts of a subscription service and a social network that gets writing to readers.
I’ll be heading up to the Javits Center later on today — it’s shaping up to be a busy afternoon (and evening).
