Borders Investor Wiped; B&N Buy Nixed—Investor Ackman, who helped keep the book retail giant afloat, may lose his shirt. Barnes & Noble strategy seen as competition rather than acquisition…(Bloomberg 17 Feb 2011)

App Wars & New Gate-Keepers?—Mashable founder Pete Cashmore opines that publishers have already lost the app war with Apple. Common hope for a new day with digital is that creators can be their own publishers, eliminating middlemen including gatekeepers. Cashmore says Apple's ownership of access has created the first gatekeepers in the digital world. What that really means is, once again, an end to free markets (e.g., the six New York city cartels increasingly shut out competition over recent generations). Is he right, or can we hope for a market correction that will core the Apple?… (CNN TECH 17 Feb 2011)

More Borders stores may close —Bleeding millions per week, retailer edging closer to 300 stores closing as bankruptcy gains momentum… (Bookseller.com 17 Feb 2011)

Australian/New Zealand Retail Giant Bankrupt—Literally hours after the Borders filing in the U.S., Australian retail chain REDgroup collapses. (Bookseller.com 17 Feb 2011)… This comes on the heels of Canada's largest print book wholesaler (Fenn) folding, leaving Canadian book retailers propped up by U.S. wholesaler Ingram:

Apple Apps War Continues—Rhapsody, an online music provider, threatens to pull out of Apple store, citing new Apple demand for 30% of revenues. Text publishers could be in the same mix. Rhapsody may rally others to join.… (CNN Money 16 Feb 2011)…Possible winners: Google One Pass, a subscription service.… More: Google One Pass wants to charge 10% (BBC News Technology 16 Feb 2011)—

Borders List of Stores to Close—Whether this is it, or if there are more closings to come, nobody knows. … (Publishers Weekly 16 Feb 2011) Added Note 17 Feb 2011: 75 more possible closings.

Borders Files Chapter 11—On the ropes for many months, the #2 book retailing giant has moved under court-protected reorganization. Borders will close about 30% of its stores, but expects to meet payroll for the remaining employees. Its Rewards program and e-bookstore will continue. The question is: will Borders be able to emerge from Chapter 11 as a viable, profitable company? If not, Chapter 7 liquidation may not be far down the road… (Publishers Weekly 16 Feb 2011)…More: (Bloomberg 16 Feb 2011)…
…

The Surprising Future of E-Printing: 3-D—Imagine printing an airliner, or a glove, or a bus. That's 3-D E-Printing, a technology that already exists, though in its infancy—who knew? No, it won't save our beloved tree books. This futuristic technology is a takeoff on long-established Numerical Calculation (NC) manufacturing, which is in itself a kind of automated extension of primordial routing and reaming techniques. European Medieval carpenter shops were full of such tools, powered by human brawn. One day soon, when you buy an appliance or an automobile, chances are it will be manufactured with 3-D E-Printing. Given the nature of RNA and DNA, will printing of animals and humans be far off? It makes our current digital revolution look like a tempest in a teapot—people become hysterical over nothing. (Economist 10 Feb 2011) … E-Printing: Human Skin, Organs, Next Frontier

Borders Filing Imminent. Borders Group's fate is in the hands of bankruptcy lawyers, planning the optimal strategy in a dismal situation. Few details are available, but the world is watching with bated breath as one of the print industry's biggest ships looks about to roll over and go down. (Publishers Weekly 15 Feb 2011)… (Wall Street Journal 12 Feb 2011)…

Apple iPad e-store: Signs of Life?—Is the iPad another over-engineered, bellsy-whistley product (read: Mac, Windows, et al) with a Woops factor at the user end? Is the iPad beautiful, elitist, overly expensive, and mainly an ad platform for expensive prducts? Notoriously, iPad owners must use third-party apps to buy many popular books and stories for reading on their iPad. Amazon quickly provided a lucrative third party app so we can buy Kindle and read iPad. Recently, Apple was seen as moving toward a proprietary app (how odd, an app for your own platform; a fundamental design issue?) to control sales from its e-store. Of course this app would cut out the other apps, so Apple can monopolize incidental transaction profits in addition to its basic publisher/platform cut. Cross-platform transparency is the single biggest battle in the digital industry—and herein lies a key skirmish. (Publishers Weekly 15 Feb 2011)…Related: And here's more about Amazon, Kindle apps, and cloud computing (CNN Money 15 Feb 2011) …

Hope for small bookstores?—Huge bookstore chains are struggling for life. Borders is on the verge of bankruptcy, and Canada's leading wholesaler has gone out of business. Small entrepreneurs, meanwhile, are busy creating niches of a local and community flavor. They believe that the bookstore experience can take browsing, reading, and buying in new directions. (USA Today Books 10 Feb 2011)…

Borders Inching Closer to BK—(AOL-HuffPo). While Publishers Weekly has Borders on death watch, AOL-Huffpo says BK is around the corner—could be Chapter 11 (shielded restructuring) or Chapter 7 (Finis). Last minute financing lifelines are in talks…More (PW Borders Watch): …

Passed: Redwall's Brian Jacques, 71—(PIN 14 Feb 2011). Always a writer, the lifelong Liverpudlian traveled the globe as a merchant seaman, was a boxer, drove a bus, and more. Then his 21-book series charmed the world's children, and sold over 20 million copies…More (MSNBC Books):
…

Solutions: Japan Man Slashes P-Books, Goes Digital—(PIN 14 Feb 2011). Don't try this at home. A Japanese bibliophile unveils yet another print-industry nightmare that may be suprisingly common in all cultures: the overloaded, collapsing bookshelf, killer of pets and children. His solution began with a knife, a scanner, and an iPad. Yusuke Ohki is now an entrepreneur of jisui, 'home-cooking' (DYI) (Bloomberg)…

Publishing Industry News Launch Date: 14 February 2011; child of Sharpwriter.com (complete writer's resource page, 1998-2006)…

Historical Novel: The Paris Wife (Hadley Hemingway)—Ernest Hemingway was the most iconic of the 'Lost Generation' of U.S. expatriates who lived in the heady and sophisticated Paris between the wars. Hadley Hemingway, his beautiful, older, first wife, lived with him while he was still a hard-drinking, sensitive, enigmatic unknown scarred by his combat experiences as a World War I ambulance driver. She bore him his first child while he was writing the earliest of the novels that made him an enduring monument in literature. Hadley was a pianist and a woman in her own right. After their years together, he left Hemingway on discovering that he was having an affair with Pauline Pfeiffer (his second wife). This book is about Hadley, and her rich, strong personality. (Review: Entertainment Weekly 16 Feb 2011)

Real Story: How Mary Shelley came to write Frankenstein—On a dark and stormy night (literally, and literarily) in 1816, the monster was born who has wobbled across stages and silver screens for over a century now. Frankenstein was the creator, not the monster. 1816 was the year without a summer—causing persistent darkness, crop failures, and starvation around the globe—from the 1815 eruption of Mt. Tambora in Indonesia. On May 14, in Villa Diodati in Geneva, Lord Byron challenged his guests to see who could tell the most terrifying tale. Mary Shelley (1797-1851), already a tragic figure herself, invented her tragic and misunderstood monster, arguably a metaphor for her own tormented inner persona. Byron's young physician Dr. John Polidori, who committed suicide five years later at age 26, that very same night invented the world's first major literary vampire, named Lord Ruthven.(BBC 15 Feb 2011) …

Odd Story: Raymond Chandler wife's ashes join his—Iconic 20th Century author Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) lies buried in San Diego's Mount Hope Cemetery. Incidentally, the cemetery is famous for other residents, like 1892 murder or suicide victim and now world-renowned ghost 'Kate Morgan'). Chandler (The Big Sleep, 1939; Farewell, My Lovely, 1940) was among the rarified few who revolutionized the private eye genre during the mid-20th Century. Cissy Chandler died in 1954. During her long illness, Chandler wrote The Long Goodbye. Drunk and grieving, he kept Cissy's ashes nearby. A 2010 Los Angeles court order brought Cissy to her final resting place beside the man who loved her. (BBC 15 Feb 2011) …

Valentine's Day: Men—what Romance fiction says about reaching a woman's heart— What is it that women most desire? Is it the fantasy of limerence and love? Communication? Holding hands? A long and noisy smooch? Help is here. (USA Today 14 Feb 2011) …

Office Peacemaker: End Wars, Discover Style Guides— Grammar & Style: How to avoid those office wars over commas and similar distractions. Why reinvent the wheel? Why style guides save time, money, and feelings—and prevent your staff from looking amateurish. (The Informed Opinion; Sharpwriter Content c. 1999)……

Office Peacemaker: Data Is vs. Data Are; The Skinny— Grammar & Style: Why do go to 'the opera' (plural of opus) but listen to 'an opus'? It's like driving in a parkway but parking in a driveway. The formative chaos of language, and why your brain is wired not to explode at contradictions (The Informed Opinion; Sharpwriter Content c. 1999)…

Help! He Stole My Life's Work!— Writer's Resource: Should you lose ten years of your life and have your hair turn white as you drink your morning coffee and browse the Web, only to discover that you are the latest victim of felony intellectual property theft? Is your novel now someone else's? Here's some common sense to a huge problem. (The Informed Opinion; Sharpwriter Content c. 1999)……

More Content On the Way: Visit Often.— Since 1998, Sharpwriter.com has provided writers' resources in all areas, from grammar and style guides to help with writer's block and online piracy. Now Sharpwriter is back as Publishing Industry News, focusing on the business of writing and publishing in a way that makes sense, is understandable, and can be digested with coffee and donuts.…