BTW News Briefs

Tor/Forge E-Books to Go DRM-Free

Tom Doherty Associates, publishers of Tor, Forge, Orb, Starscape, and Tor Teen, announced this week that by early July 2012, their entire list of e-books will be available DRM-free.

“Our authors and readers have been asking for this for a long time,” said President and Publisher Tom Doherty in posting to the company’s blog. “They’re a technically sophisticated bunch, and DRM is a constant annoyance to them. It prevents them from using legitimately-purchased e-books in perfectly legal ways, like moving them from one kind of e-reader to another.”

Doherty’s DRM-free titles will be available from the same range of retailers that currently sell their e-books. In addition, the company expects to begin selling titles through retailers that sell only DRM-free books.

Tor UK also announced that it will also be going DRM-free.

SBA and Constant Contact Offer Small Business Week Webinar

On May 24, as part of Small Business Week (May 20 – 26) celebrations, the Small Business Administration and Constant Contact are teaming up to offer a free, live webinar: Getting Down to Business: Helping You Reach Your Next Great Customer.

Led by experts in e-mail and social media marketing, as well as small business mentoring, the session will provide tips and strategies for reaching your next great customer; getting existing customers to bring you new ones; creating engaging marketing campaigns; and more.

Heidi Tobias of Constant Contact will host the session on Thursday May 24, 2012 at 1:00 p.m. ET / 10:00 a.m. PT. Registration is required.

First Chautauqua Prize Winner Named

Andrew Krivak has been named the winner of the inaugural Chautauqua Prize for his debut novel The Sojourn (Bellevue Literary Press).The prize, awarded by the Chautauqua Institution, celebrates a book of fiction or literary/narrative nonfiction that provides a richly rewarding reading experience and honors the author for a significant contribution to the literary arts.

As author of the winning book, Krivak receives $7,500 and all travel and expenses for a one-week summer residency at Chautauqua, a not-for-profit educational and cultural center in southwestern New York State. He will host a public reading and book signing on August 6 on the Institution grounds.

2011 Bestsellers in 10 Major Cities

The Daily Beast has published lists of the bestselling fiction and nonfiction books last year in 10 major U.S. cities. The lists were compiled from sales rankings provided by Nielsen BookScan from more than 13,000 locations across the U.S., including major booksellers, Internet retailers, and food and other non-traditional bookselling stores.

Among the Beast’s observations: “No surprise that Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography topped the nonfiction list in almost every city, and The Help even took the top two spots for fiction. But there were some interesting differences: note that Bill O’Reilly’s book didn’t make it on the list in San Francisco, and Todd Burpo’s Heaven Is for Real overtook Isaacson in Dallas, Detroit, and Houston.