A New Competitor in the e-book Industry

Book publishers are surrounded by hungry new competitors: Amazon, with its steadily growing imprints; authors who publish their own e-books; and online start-ups like All Star Press.

Now they have to contend with another group elbowing into their territory: news organizations.

Swiftly and at little cost, newspapers, magazines and sites like The Huffington Post are hunting for revenue by publishing their own version of e-books, either using brand-new content or repurposing material that they may have given away free in the past.

And by making e-books that are usually shorter, cheaper to buy and more quickly produced than the typical book, they are redefining what an e-book is — and who gets to publish it.

READ MORE from the NY Times

Google +1 An Opportunity for Authors?

google+…If you want your brand to be represented in Google+, just wait for a couple of weeks and the official offer described above will come your way. And bear in mind this is only the beginning since Google teams are working hard to roll out new content types (games, music) and functionality (Questions).

Yes, lots of opportunities are coming to Google+ for brands. Be prepared authors.  [READ THE FULL ANALYSIS OF +1]