Aw, for Christmas we get a new sister blog. Just what we wanted!

eBookNewser will be compiled by journalist Craig Morgan Teicher and GalleyCat editor Jason Boog.

eBookNewser tells us:

This site will cover eBooks, digital reading devices, publishing technology, smartphone reading applications, digital self-publishing, and the rapidly evolving future of digital publishing.

Just in time for a new decade.

Follow them on Twitter here.

The complete press release is after the jump.

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Publishers Weekly suffered a painful round of cuts in January that included editor-in-chief Sara Nelson. Yesterday the magazine lost three more- managing editor Robin Lenz, associate editor Craig Morgan Teicher; and senior editor Dermot McEvoy. The layoffs were part of the 7% company-wide downsizing by parent company Reed Business Information, which also owns Variety.

On the LAT’s book blog Jacket Copy, Carolyn Kellog examines the upheaval at the book industry trade magazine.

The publishing industry may be smaller, but it’s facing challenges that are even more complex than Hollywood’s, what with questions of electronic publishing, e-readers, declining readership and inefficient models of distribution.

“The publishing industry needs an on- and offline forum where it can confer about strategy and direction,” said Richard Nash, former publisher of Soft Skull Press. “But it doesn’t appear as if [Publishers Weekly] is going to supply those needs.”

With these layoffs, Publishers Weekly has lost some very Web-savvy staff, particularly associate editor Craig Teicher. He was a go-to guy for electronic publishing and the Web; as a bonus, he also covered poetry. Firing him, Nash says, “does seem like a counterproductive development.” The staff cuts throw the company’s commitment to new media into question.