In a series of memos today, Random House, Inc. announced some wide-ranging changes at the company. Nina von Moltke, Random House’s VP of Corporate Development, will now serve as VP of Digital Publishing Development–overseeing some restructuring in the company.

CEO Markus Dohle explained the transition: “Aside from her new task of supporting the development of our digital content offerings across the divisions, Nina will also oversee the Random House Audio Publishing and Fodor’s Travel Groups. Both groups provide excellent models of successfully transitioning from analog to digital businesses, and I know that they and our traditional trade publishing groups will benefit by having them integrated into the corporate-level digital publishing team.”

At the same time, Dohle also outlined other moves. The Princeton Review, Sylvan Learning, and Prima Games imprints will now be part of the Random House Children’s Books division since they share a “core consumer base as well as a like focus on brand management and strong license partnerships.” In addition, Tricycle Books (formerly part of Crown’s Ten Speed Press) will also become part of the Children’s Books division. He noted: “Tricycle now will be a Berkeley-based imprint of Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers and its frontlist and backlist will continue to be sold by Children’s Sales.”

Click here to read more about the changes. Read the whole memo after the jump…

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Retailing for $189.99 and coming in both burgundy and bronze editions, the Nintendo DSi XL will help the gaming company grab a spot in the eBook universe.

The new device will launch with a stylus, a screen 93 percent larger than the Nintendo DS Lite model (pictured), and special eBook package. According to the company, the new device will launch March 28.

Here’s more from eBookNewser: “In June, according to BusinessWeek, the company will introduce ’100 Classic Books,’ a collection of public domain works for reading on the DSi XL. The collection will cost $19.99. Obviously, this is a move to avoid being eclipsed by Apple’s iPad, which will be used by many–as are the iPhone and iPod Touch–to play games, most likely more sophisticated ones that its smaller cousins can handle.”

In March, the Disney Channel will release Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars starring Jennifer Stone (one of the leads in the Disney Channel’s Wizards of Waverly Place).

It will, for better or for worse, give the beloved children’s book a 21st Century makeover. Watch the trailer above for more details, but here are the basics: Harriet is now a blogger competing with a popular girl at school in “blog war,” armed with a laptop and high-tech surveillance devices.

One YouTube commenter was pretty excited by the trailer: “OMG love the book the 90s movie and will love this!” Another commenter skipped the book altogether: “They should leave Harriet the Spy alone and keep it as an awesome memory that belongs to Nickelodeon.” Finally, one reader added an expletive-laden comment with this bit of criticism: “Harriet the Spy is not about popularity or getting the hot guy. It’s about a girl who wants to become a writer one day so she observes people and writes in her notebook.”

This will undoubtedly spawn The Big Literary Debate of the Week. What do you think? Is this an imaginative improvement or abusive adaptation?

Following the release of Attributor’s dramatic report about the state of digital book piracy, HarperCollins and Harvard Business School Publishing have elected to use the piracy prevention company’s FairShare Guardian Service.

As eBookNewser reported, Attributor recently published a report that claimed eBook piracy represents as much as $2.75 billion in losses to the publishing industry–ruling that 10,000 copies of every book published are pirated. The report drew many, many responses.

Here’s more about the Attributor program: “[It] provides publishers with unprecedented 24/7 piracy protection by monitoring more than 35 billion pages, including hosting sites, cyberlockers and link farms, continuously scanning for copies of original works. Once a potential infringing copy is found, the content is verified before takedown notifications are sent and verified.”

Any thoughts? Is this a step in the right direction for piracy prevention?

Reviewed by Patrique Ludan
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Sam Shepard is truly a man of many forms. A former musician, a current actor, and playwright, he has seen and conquered the creative aspects of the human mind. An author no less, he has given America a truly stunning vision of what our country is—a broken puzzle with many pieces that will never fit together.

Day out of Days: Stories begins where the narrator does his best work, the kitchen. “Now I’ve got my own kitchen deep in the country with a big round table smack in the middle,” he states as he describes a jumbled snapshot of his past. “I’m in this bunker all my own, surrounded by mysterious stuff.”

The narrator, Shepard’s alter ego, is searching within himself the answers to this unending uncertainty. By the end of “Days,” I could hardly tell if he put the pieces together, or if they were still drifting along the vast expanse of an American wasteland.

One story involves the narrator’s encounter with a head. Not a typical occurrence in every day life, but as our character begins to carefully inspect in head, it begins to speak.

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That Picador book trailer pairs actor Zach Galifianakis (The Hangover and Bored to Death) with novelist John Wray–a short look at Wray’s process while writing his novel, Lowboy.

Just watch the video. We won’t give away the joke, but here’s an answer from the interviewee: “You know what the first thing that I put on the paper is? ‘The end.’ And then I work backwards…’I'll write ‘end’ and then ‘the.’ Then I’ll write, for instance in my last novel, ‘calibration.’”

According to the site, a longer version of the interview will be posted soon. Wray has appeared on these pages before, showing off his Michiko Kakutani tattoo and talking about Roberto Bolano’s 2666.

In a twist of fate that makes this GalleyCat editor wonder what the snow gods have against literary criticism, the Melville House Bookstore panel discussion on “the future of book reportage” has been postponed by blizzard-like conditions–for the second time in a row!

Never fear, the event will be rescheduled, and we’ll join some of publishing’s brightest minds–trying to figure out how to improve our literary coverage at GalleyCat Reviews. The panel will include: Laura Miller (Salon.com), Michael Miller (Time Out New York), Craig Morgan Teicher (eBookNewser), and Sara Nelson (O, the Oprah magazine).

Here’s more from the site: “With both the book industry and the journalism industry in historic tumult, whither literary journalism? Where will people read about books and authors and publishers in the future? Will reviews remain important? Will blogs play a more or less important role? Will reportage of industry trends and business developments improve or worsen? What kind of journalism will impact how people hear about books, and where they buy them?”

Last night CBS medical correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton celebrated the release of her new book with some of television news’ biggest stars.

Avery Books hosted the party at Bar Americain in Manhattan. The book is entitled The Body Scoop for Girls: A Straight-Talk Guide to a Healthy, Beautiful You: “a no-holds-barred guidebook, based on her passion to cut through the embarrassment that girls often feel about their changing bodies and to arm them with the knowledge they need to make smart choices.”

GalleyCat missed the party, but the picture above shows a few of the attendees. From left to right: The Early Show weather anchor Dave Price, The Early Show co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez, CBS News and Sports president Sean McManus, Ashton, and The Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith.

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To help 21st Century kids navigate the blurring lines between fact and fiction, Ripley Publishing has launched a new children’s book line entitled, Ripley’s Bureau of Investigation

The books will follow a team of teenaged detectives continuing the investigative work of Robert Ripley–analyzing “weird and wacky happenings around the world.” The first four books will arrive in May, with two more in September and two more in November. The first paperback sells for $4.99.

As the press release notes, these fictional adventures are backed by real-life tales: “Engaging characters and entertaining stories are supported by true Ripley Believe It or Not! facts throughout the books, each of which concludes with an RBI Case File–a wholly factual section featuring the real Ripley people that inspired the adventure.”

Over at Literary Kicks, that aerial photograph has sparked a literary guessing game. That photo, taken in 1924, reveals the site of a famous literary death scene.

Follow this link to see a larger version of the picture. All you have to do is guess which literary work is represented in the photograph–part of Literary Kicks’ first Mystery Spot guessing game.

Here’s more about the contest: “You have definitely read this novel. It’s one of the most widely loved novels of all time. A person is killed, during one of the novel’s climactic scenes, by the forked road near the top right of the photo. The vast expanse in the photo’s center, which appears to be a work of geometric modern art, provides one of the novel’s central metaphors.”