Huffington Post Follows the Trend and Turns Publisher

The Huffington Post has turned digital publisher, releasing its first e-book, A People’s History of the Great Recession by reporter Arthur Delaney on the  7th September. It’s second second release, Aaron Belkin’s How We Won: Progressive Lessons from the Repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, will be available from September 20.

Delaney e-book is a compilation of his articles about the financial crisis, which have all previously run on Huffington Post site.

The Huffington Post is not paying advances to its authors; instead, they will receive a share of the proceeds from sales. So far, it is publishing only digital books and doesn’t have a partnership with a traditional publisher, working instead with e-book distributor BookBrewer.

More Comics Move to Tablets

IDW Publishing launched 19 graphic novels in the iBook Store this week, hoping to bring new readers to the medium by placing their graphic novels in the same space as related prose books. According to Jeff Webber, director of ePublishing for IDW, the comics apps were successful in bringing the comics to established comics readers, but that people who don’t regularly read comics are less likely to encounter them; putting the books in the iBooks Store will ensure that Anne Rice, readers, for instance, will find IDW’s graphic adaptations of her work in the same search as her prose novels. Incidentally, the launch included Code Word: Geronimo, IDW’s graphic novel about the capture and killing of Osama Bin Laden, which was released simultaneously in digital and print.

eBooks Father Dies Aged 64

Project Gutenberg founder Michael Hart, who created the first ever ebook after deciding on a whim to type the US Declaration of Independence into a computer, has died at home in Urbana, Illinois, aged 64.

Today, Project Gutenberg is one of the largest collections of free ebooks in the world.

A tribute to Hart, posted on Project Gutenberg by Dr Gregory B Newby, says that he “left a major mark on the world”.

“Hart was an ardent technologist and futurist. A lifetime tinkerer, he acquired hands-on expertise with the technologies of the day: radio, hi-fi stereo, video equipment, and of course computers. He constantly looked into the future, to anticipate technological advances. One of his favorite speculations was that someday, everyone would be able to have their own copy of the Project Gutenberg collection or whatever subset desired. This vision came true, thanks to the advent of large inexpensive computer disk drives, and to the ubiquity of portable mobile devices, such as cell phones.

Hart also predicted the enhancement of automatic translation, which would provide all of the world’s literature in over a hundred languages. While this goal has not yet been reached, by the time of his death Project Gutenberg hosted eBooks in 60 different languages, and was frequently highlighted as one of the best Internet-based resources.”

Hart is survived by his mother Alice and his brother Bennett.