U.S. files antitrust suit to stop major book publisher merger
The Justice Department is suing to block a $2.2 billion book publishing deal that would have reshaped the industry, saying consolidation would hurt authors and, ultimately, readers.
Publishing
Articles
Kurt Vonnegut Museum earns state’s first Literary Landmark designation
The designation puts the museum on Indiana Avenue in the same company with sites associated with Edgar Allen Poe, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Zora Neale Hurston, Mark Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe.
Biles credits IndyStar for revealing gymnastics abuse. Here’s how it got the story.
The Star’s investment on a single story was especially astonishing at a time when local and regional newspapers around the country have faced shrinking ad revenue or hedge-fund takeovers, some of them closing altogether.
IBJ Media acquires Inside INdiana Business television, website
IBJ Media CEO and co-owner Nate Feltman said the acquisition fulfills two goals he’s had since becoming an owner of IBJ Media in 2017: expanding coverage statewide and moving into video and TV.
Q&A: Blogger Katy Mann pivots through pandemic
In 2019, Mann’s website—IndyWithKids.com—had 2.5 million page views. Thanks to some clever pandemic pivots, it more than doubled its page views in 2020 to 6 million.
Q&A: From microscopes to telescopes—tales of great Hoosier scientists
Duane Nickell, a retired science teacher in Indianapolis, decided it was time to collect the stories of 17 prominent Hoosier scientists. What resulted is a book called “Scientific Indiana” that’s hitting stores now.
Q&A with Scott Jared: Adopting a mindset of great abundance
Scott Jarred didn’t have big expectations for his first book, “FutureHack! How To Reach Your Full Financial Potential,” which he self-published this year. But it ended up on the top of The Wall Street Journal’s e-book non-fiction best-seller list.
Pence inks two-book deal, launches political advocacy group
Mike Pence’s book deal continues the former vice president’s re-emergence since January. On Wednesday, he launched Advancing American Freedom, which will work as a counterpoint to the Biden agenda.
Q&A with Jamie Merisotis, author of book on how AI will reshape the workplace
Merisotis, who leads the Lumina Foundation, said jobs humans can uniquely do are those in which they “think critically, reason ethically, interact interpersonally and serve others with empathy.”
Greg Morris to retire as publisher of IBJ, Indiana Lawyer
The change comes as IBJ has experienced a surge in readership—despite challenges in the newspaper industry overall—breaking a record this month for subscriptions that had been set in 2001.
Penguin to buy Simon & Schuster for $2.17B, create publishing giant
The purchase of Simon & Schuster would reduce the so-called Big Five of American publishing—which also includes HarperCollins, Hachette Book Group and Macmillan—to four.
Q&A: In Gen Z lingo, ‘electric’ is cool and ‘fire’ is good
Kelly King, a brand strategist who founded a Bloomington ad firm, is so fascinated by Generation Z and its values that she published a dictionary to decode its dialect.
Chef and writer J. Kenji López-Alt cooks up a kid’s book
Pipo is a young girl in a new book for kids who insists that pizza is the best food on Earth. Prompted by her mom to prove it, Pipo goes across her neighborhood testing alternatives: tagine, red beans and rice, bibimbap and dumplings.
Book review: Novel ‘Monogamy’ explores unconditional love
Miller’s gift as a writer has always been finely drawn portraits of families and that talent is on full display here.
Book Review: `Story of Gardening’ gets a timely update
The authors show gardening to be an age-old struggle to appreciate and amplify nature’s beauty while also imposing order on it. It’s about finding a balance, too, between what looks good and what is practical.
AP’s usage guidelines to capitalize Black but not white
The Associated Press, whose Stylebook is widely influential in the industry, said Monday it will reject the recommendation of the National Association of Black Journalists and continue to lowercase white in its usage rules.
IBJ wins 10 national awards for business coverage including Penske purchase of IMS
The judges commended IBJ’s “expansive content that reaches into the corners of transportation, technology, sports, health, higher education, civic affairs, state government and more.”
13 books on the history of Black America for those who really want to learn
The national uprising for racial justice and social change sparked by the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis has prompted new calls for changes in school curriculum that reflect the broad reality of Black America—but there’s no reason that students should be the only ones learning.
IBJ, AP changing writing style to capitalize ‘b’ in Black
The change conveys “an essential and shared sense of history, identity and community among people who identify as Black, including those in the African diaspora and within Africa,” an AP official said Friday.
Books: The elusive truths of Melania Trump
Author Mary Jordan, a political reporter at The Washington Post, has assembled a solid narrative about the first lady, written without embellishment or much editorial comment, allowing the facts to speak for themselves.