Making Deadline

We hope you are warm and safe with electricity and actually dry walls. It’s been one heck of a week! Yet publishing continued apace on the East Coast of the United States even as Sandy raged, with content providers of all stripes holing up in bars, cafes, bedrooms, and other unusual spots to meet deadline.

For her part, independent publicist Kathleen Matthews Schmidt put her PR skills to best use by organizing relief efforts for hard-hit Jersey Shore victims of the storm.

We're curious: Did you have to ride out the storm and still produce content? Or did you abandon "normal" life for volunteer efforts? How did you do it? What did you do? We’d love to see and read your stories. Please share them with us on our TOC community site.

TOC 2013 in New York City

Best Pricing Discount Ends Thursday

Do you feel like technology is pushing the publishing industry a little too quickly? Come to TOC to get a handle on the big picture. We promise you'll come away with inspiration, actionable insights, and valuable new connections.

New for 2013: Author (R)evolution Day, for those taking an alternate path to publishing.

You know you want to be there.

Register by November 8 for guaranteed best price.

Hot Type

Kat & Joe's Must-Reads

Peak Pique
"Ebook buyers are not new consumers, they are only new to ebooks as a category of product," writes Andy Richardson Andy has some smart thoughts on how book market growth will slow as ebooks reach their saturation point.

All of Yours are Ours
All the international back-and-forthing that led Amazon to shut down a Norwegian reader's account last month highlights major problems with ebook distribution. Michael Clarke outlines a plan to fix it. (Hint: Publishers will have to abandon DRM.)

Hypercraft Economy
Perhaps you were busy in August? If so, you may have missed this interesting post from the European Commission on the importance of plain old craftsmanship in an increasingly tech-savvy age.

Inkling Retail
Inkling's mission to reinvent publishing for the mobile, digital, era continues apace with founder and CEO Matt MacInnis launching the Inkling online store, Inkling Library.

High Stakes Case
It's not a sexy case, but the Wiley v. Kirtsaengcase now in front of the US Supreme Court is one to watch. The "first-sale" doctrine is on trial, and the stakes are high for everyone, including publishers.

The Four-Hour Mistake?
What happens to a bestselling author when he chooses to make Amazon the only outlet? We might have to ask Timothy Ferriss.

Free Live Webcast: Adding Value with Metadata

Open Up the Index

Friday, Nov. 9, at 10amPT

In this webcast presentation, we'll explore new paths for reusing content metadata for discovery and recommendations with Pilar Wyman, President of the American Society for Indexing.

Indexes are one of the most detailed metadata sets available for your content, and can be used to search, recommend, explore, and create buyers for your publications.

We'll talk about:

• baseline metadata
• semantic markup
• whether you need controlled vocabularies across multiple publications
• displaying mashups of multiple indexes
• incorporating social input

Sign Up Today

The Final Bit

Our Weekly Nod to the Ouija

Just when you thought the haunting was over, Mentalfloss charges in with further tales from the crypt.

To wit: Pearl Lenore Curran, Emily Grant Hutchings, Mildred Swanson, and Jane Roberts once claimed to have been the conduit for truly posthumous works transmitted by dead authors through the magic of Ouija Boards.

Incredibly, two deadly dull books were said to have been dictated to Hutchings by none other than Samuel Clemens himself. Fortunately, Clara Clemons had the good sense to sue Hutchings and Mark Twain's legacy remains unbesmirched.

(While Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert Louis Stevenson were said—by Hutchings—to have "watched over" her board, they evidently had the good taste not to attempt post scripts.)

As outlined, the practice puts "ghostwriting" in a whole new light.

Looking for more? Visit toc/oreilly.com.