Free Republic

High price, high sales, glossy ads, trebles all roundSaving the whole of the newspaper industry is a big ask, even for a "magical and revolutionary" device, but there might just be hope for the magazine business. The rapaciously-priced ($4.99 for this month's issue) iPad edition of Wired has comfortably outsold the somewhat cheaper print edition, and it's not even ad-free. On the contrary... It's a success for 'definitely not free', which you might reckon is a problem for Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired and King of Free. Anderson however has been tetchily protesting - in between tweeting the...

<p>The Canadian rock band Rush has sent a letter to Kentucky U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul, saying his campaign is violating copyright laws by playing their music without permission.</p> <p>The Courier-Journal of Louisville reported that Rush's attorney, Robert Farmer of Toronto, had sent the letter to the Paul campaign. Farmer told the newspaper his objection is not political.</p>

Sarah Palin announced on her Facebook page that Joe McGinniss, author of the infamous book Fatal Vision that chronicled the story of Jeffrey MacDonald, has rented the house right next door to hers. It seems he's chosen her has the subject of his next book. Lucky her. While she keeps the tone of her post upbeat and positive, it's clear she is disturbed to know that someone so hostile and antagonistic toward her is watching her and her family's every move. Since Palin published her post, the blogosphere has been all atwitter about this development. Many people find it creepy....

At the beginning of March 2004, almost nobody outside the narrow world of Chicago politics had heard of Barack Hussein Obama. He was 42, a state legislator and the author of a well-received but by no means bestselling memoir, Dreams from My Father. Then he won the Democratic primary for the safe senatorial seat of Illinois. Four months later, he delivered his galvanising keynote address to the Democratic national convention (“there is not a liberal America and a conservative America; there is a United States of America”). That November he was duly elected senator: the only African-American in Congress’s upper...

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Enjoy $9.99 electronic books while you can -- for they soon may be a thing of the past. News Corp Chief Rupert Murdoch, who oversees a media empire than includes HarperCollins books, home to authors like Michael Crichton and Janet Evanovich, made clear on Tuesday his displeasure with the low price Amazon.com Inc has set for electronic books.

E&P will shut its doors this afternoon after more than 125 years in operation as "the bible of the newspaper industry" and one of America's oldest magazines. Staffers are vacating the offices in New York City, but we still hope to be back. We shipped our January issue on Monday and it will be mailed to subscribers next week. This Web site and our two blogs will remain alive but we will not be updating them after today. Office phone and email service will be suspended but staffers--a vast majority have worked here from 10 to 25 years--can be reached...

Ever since electronic books emerged as a major growth market, New York’s largest publishing houses have worried that big-name authors might sign deals directly with e-book retailers or other new ventures, bypassing traditional publishers entirely. Now, one well-known author is doing just that. Stephen R. Covey, one of the most successful business authors of the last two decades, has moved e-book rights for two of his best-selling books from his print publisher, Simon & Schuster, a division of the CBS Corporation, to a digital publisher that will sell the e-books to Amazon.com for one year. ... The move promises to...

Media: By now the decline of the newspaper industry has become, well, yesterday's news. Small wonder the industry's own trade publication would eventually close its own doors. But there's a little more to the story. Last week Editor & Publisher magazine, aged 125, finally ended its run as newspaperdom's principal trade pub when owner Neilsen Business Media announced it no longer fit in with the company's reformulated plans. Journalists who had long since ceased reading the print edition offered nostalgic tributes — online. That their posts appeared on the Internet itself tells much of the story. In recent years both...

While Sarah Palin is certainly making waves with her own best-selling book “Going Rogue,” the former governor and vice presidential candidate is also in the spotlight with a cameo appearance as a heroine in the recently released children’s book “Help! Mom! Radicals Are Ruining My Country!”In the book written by Katharine DeBrecht, “Governor Sarah” (a character based on Palin) attempts to help two young boys hold onto their dream of a swing-set business which is struggling as a result of high taxes, heavy regulations and 246 czars. “I am trying to let all Americans know that these radicals are killing...

Sarah Palin certainly turned heads when she made an appearance in springfield just weeks before the 2008 presidential election, and now she's turning pages locally too. Many people in the Ozarks seem to be "Going Rogue. In fact south Springfield's Borders was in the nation's top ten for most copies of Palin's new memoir reserved ahead of Tuesday's release. George Carlin's "Last Words" may very well be forgotten. "Yeah i'm going to get it," one Borders patron says. He's not talking about George, bur rather his shelf-mate- one-time vice presidential hopeful turned best-seller hopeful Sarah Palin's political memoir. "Since we...

Bloomberg is taking another step from the trading floor into the corner office. The company said Tuesday that it was the winning bidder for BusinessWeek, the troubled 80-year-old title that McGraw-Hill had put on sale this summer. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the price was said to be near $5 million, plus assumption of liabilities, which were $31.9 million as of April. The magazine will continue to be a weekly print publication, rechristened Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Decisions have not been made about BusinessWeek’s staff of more than 400 people; Bloomberg will select which of those employees it wants...

Conde Nast CEO Charles Townsend said Monday he was shutting down four magazines, including the awarding winning Gourmet, parenthood title Cookie and two of the company’s bridal magazines, Modern Bride and Elegant Bride. It was the biggest one-day bloodbath in the publishing company’s 100-year history. Hundreds of people will be tossed out of work. The company said it would keep the Gourmet cookbooks and television programming but shut the monthly magazine. Bride’s, the last surviving bridal book, will move to monthly from six times a year. Industry sources had estimated that Conde Nast could lose $200 million this year.

Yellow Springs company embraces niche and club publications YELLOW SPRINGS — In the summer of 2008, Benjamin Smith and Vicki McClellan spotted a small magazine out of Fort Myers, Fla., calling itself Patriots of the American Revolution. After seeing it, they knew two things. First, they liked the magazine, its exploration of a certain corner of history, its direction and feel. Second, they knew their company, Yellow Springs custom publisher Ertel Publishing, could make it better. The magazine’s owner, Three Patriots LLC, has hired Ertel Publishing to design and produce the magazine. But Three Patriots and Ertel Publishing aren’t exactly...

Last week, a group of Yale alumni (myself included) released an open letter protesting Yale University Press' decision not to publish the infamous Muhammed cartoons in a book about those very illustrations. "The Cartoons That Shook the World," by Brandeis Prof. Jytte Klausen - set for publication within weeks - details the 2005 events in which Muslim preachers seized upon 12 drawings in a Danish newspaper to orchestrate a global campaign of violence that led to the deaths of 200 people. Citing fears of further hostility, the Press, under the advisement of top university officials and unnamed outside "experts," chose...

A homosexual man is suing a third national Bible publisher for "mental anguish" after he says the company published Bibles with a negative connotation toward homosexuals. Bradley LaShawn Fowler of Canton, Mich., alleges Tyndale House Publishers manipulated Scripture when it published Tyndale's New Living Translation Holy Bible and the New Life Application Study Bible by using the term "homosexuals" in a New Testament passage, 1 Corinthians 6:9. "One Bible dictates homosexuals will not inherit the Kingdom of God, while the other is completely void on the issue altogether," Fowler wrote in a statement on his blog.

A homosexual man is suing a third national Bible publisher for "mental anguish" after he says the company published Bibles with a negative connotation toward homosexuals. Bradley LaShawn Fowler of Canton, Mich., alleges William Tyndale Publishing manipulated Scripture when it published Tyndale’s New Living Translation Holy Bible and the New Life Application Study Bible by using the term "homosexuals" in a New Testament passage, 1 Corinthians 6:9. "One Bible dictates homosexuals will not inherit the Kingdom of God, while the other is completely void on the issue altogether," Fowler wrote in a statement on his blog.

$10 million sought for 'negative connotation' toward homosexuals A homosexual man is suing a third national Bible publisher for "mental anguish" after he says the company published Bibles with a negative connotation toward homosexuals. Bradley LaShawn Fowler of Canton, Mich., alleges William Tyndale Publishing manipulated Scripture when it published Tyndale’s New Living Translation Holy Bible and the New Life Application Study Bible by using the term "homosexuals" in a New Testament passage, 1 Corinthians 6:9. "One Bible dictates homosexuals will not inherit the Kingdom of God, while the other is completely void on the issue altogether," Fowler wrote in a...

The New International Version of the Bible is by far the most preferred translation of the Scripture, according to a new survey of U.S. evangelical leaders. More than 65 percent of the participating leaders named the NIV as their preferred Bible in a survey conducted by the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) in light of the NIV’s 30th anniversary this year. “New Bible translations face large competition to gain a foothold in churches and homes but once established they have long staying power,” commented Leith Anderson, president of the NAE, which claims to represent 30 million evangelicals. “And, the NIV...

The top-selling Bible in North America will undergo its first revision in 25 years, modernizing the language in some sections and promising to reopen a contentious debate about changing gender terms in the sacred text. The New International Version, the Bible of choice for conservative evangelicals, will be revised to reflect changes in English usage and advances in Biblical scholarship, it was announced Tuesday. The revision is scheduled to be completed late next year and published in 2011. "We want to reach English speakers across the globe with a Bible that is accurate, accessible and that speaks to its readers...

With annual revenue of more than $2 billion, the Reader’s Digest Association may be the largest magazine publisher to ever file for bankruptcy. But it probably won’t be the last this year. The private-equity frenzy of the past decade, combined with the unprecedented downturn, has caught up with the industry. So far in recent months, supplier companies including distributor Source Interlink and printer Quebecor World filed for protection, and publishers including the newspaper giant (and owner of Connecticut magazine) Journal Register Co. and Cygnus Business Media have as well. Summit Business Media is said to be in the process of...