Tattered Essence

The 21st annual Independent & Small Press Book Fair takes place on Saturday, December 6, and Sunday, December 7, 2008.

It will be at the New York Center for Independent Publishing at 20 W. 44th Street in New York City.

There will be more than 100 presses at the exhibit.

Programming includes a session on the future of independent publishing, a literary trivia smackdown, how-to advice on memoirs and finding a literary agent, a read-a-thon, conversations with authors and publishers and more.

Admission is free and open to the public.

For more information, contact the Center at 212-764-7021 or indiebookfair@gmail.com or go to nycip.org/bookfair.

So Britney Spears becomes a mousketeer, shoots to astronomical fame, sits atop said astronomical fame for a few years, takes a very public plunge into the misfortune of Big Gulps and Cheetos, becomes a veritable outcast other than with the even more stalker-esque paparazzi, attempts to make a comeback in a big way on the public stage, gets globally trashed for her effort at doing so, then proceeds to come back with the song and video she should have come back with in the first place. If you are looking for some Britney Spears tunes, kmusic offers britney spears downloads along with a host of other singers and bands bios and music. They don’t have the latest songs Britney, but if you want to relive Britney’s glory days, i.e. before crazy, you can pick up a few MP3 downloads on the site. Of course, downloading free MP3s on the internet is always a risky business and the site seems to be pushing free music with no way of making money from it, and why would people be that generous to strangers. It does make one wonder. So I’d highly advise downloading at your own risk. Personally, I would take a pass on the downloading. On a related note only in that they are housed on the same website, the bios are a rather interesting read. They are like a study in what happens when Google translate goes awry. You can sort of tell what they mean to say, but they just really aren’t saying it. Which is both humorous and somewhat depressing. So seriously, stop in, enjoy yourself, do your thing, but be careful what you bring home from the party with you. Remember, the best things in life are free, but that is rarely in the form of online music.

Random House already has over 8,200 titles available in ebook form. And they are planning on adding 6,000 more titles in the next few months. So why all the focus on ebooks? Well, Random House thinks that ebooks are the future. And there is also that new Kindle reader that is out. In fact, Random House is attributing its ebook success in part to the release of the Kindle reader. Since its release, ebook sales have increased by triple percentages for Random House. However, ebooks only make up less than one percent or less of total book sales for the industry.

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As if you needed further proof of how bad the economy there is some books news that illustrates it. It seems that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has begun “a temporary freeze” on acquiring new books in its trade and reference division. It was expected that this would be a rough retail season for books and this just proves that. However, Houghton is the first publisher to make such an announcement. And there is no word yet on how long this acquisition freeze will last.

The division publishes about 400 titles a year. That means that a three-month hiatus on acquisitions would lead to about 50 fewer titles.