Founder Brooke Geahan explained in the release: “Creating music for stories is reminiscent of the Golden Age of Hollywood, when the moving picture incorporated with musical scores heralded a new form of entertainment: movies … we are proud to showcase Booktrack’s affinity for exceptional literature and music, and our ability to conjure a new experience for a new era.”

Booktrack creates eBooks with a synchronized soundtrack, adding music, sound effects and ambient sound to the reading experience. On the Morning Media Menu last year, we interviewed Geahan about the new project.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Reuters has more: “Amazon also plans to open a physical store in its home town of Seattle in coming months to showcase and sell its growing line of gadgets, including the Kindle Fire tablet, industry blog Good E-Reader reported this weekend.”

Analysts have imagined the stores as Apple-like boutiques and Costco-like big box stores. eBookNewser has more: “Cowen & Co. analyst Jim Friedland speculated about it in a report to investors.He wrote: ‘The primary goal of the test is to determine if a physical retail presence can accelerate sales of Kindle devices and follow-on consumption of digital content at an attractive return on invested capital.’”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Worldwide, sales were down 5.9 percent for the publishing arm of the media conglomerate, publisher of Stephanie Meyer and Nicolas Sparks.

Here’s more from the release: “United States activity grew strongly (+12.8%) on the back of new bestsellers (The Best of Me by Nicolas Sparks, Seriously… I’m Kidding by Ellen DeGeneres), despite problems with distribution networks (bankruptcy of Borders) that lingered on into the fourth quarter. The e-books growth continued in the fourth quarter, mainly in English-speaking countries: in the United States and United Kingdom e-books accounted for 20% and 10%, respectively, of Adult Trade at the end of December 2011.” (Via Jose Afonso Furtado)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Would you buy indie eBooks in bundled together if you could help set the price for the digital books?

Video game sites like The Humble Bundle have changed the way people buy games for their mobile devices–bundling a few games by independent artists in a single download and allowing gamers to pay what they want for the bundle. Watch the video embedded above to see how it works.

The new StoryBundle site promises to perform the same function with eBooks. Follow this link to sign up for updates–what do you think of this bookselling model?

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Google has created a Google Doodle in honor of beloved author Charles Dickens’ 200th birthday.

The image embedded above features several of Dickens’ most iconic characters, including Ebeneezer Scrooge from A Christmas Carol and Pip from Great Expectations. When users click on the image at the Google homepage, they are taken to a page with Google Books listings for Dickens’ works including A Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist and David Copperfield.

Here’s more about the birthday from The Washington Post: “Prince Charles [is] expected to visit London’s Dickens Museum. Actors who reportedly are scheduled to give readings Tuesday in Britain include Ralph Fiennes (who will play Abel Magwitch in the upcoming film of Dickens’s Great Expectations), Gillian Anderson (TV’s Great Expectations) and Sheila Hancock (Bleak House), as well as Simon Callow (Christmas Carol: The Movie) performing in Dickens’s birthplace of Portsmouth, Hampshire.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Simply install the free app and snap a smartphone picture of your next letter–Evernote will save a copy of your letter into a cloud-based server. Follow these links to download the free app for your mobile device: iOS or Android or Blackberry orWindows Phone 7.

Check it out: “Evernote helps millions worldwide remember anything and everything that happens in their lives. Use Evernote to take notes, save interesting web pages, create to-dos and shopping lists, attach images and PDFs, and so much more. Then, watch as it all instantly synchronizes from your Mac to your smartphone, tablet and the Web, allowing you to find your memories at any time from anywhere.”

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

This week, Sixth&Spring Books is hiring an art/production/design assistant, while Workman Publishing Co. is on the hunt for a new managing editor. ALM is seeking a legal book editor, and Macmillan High Education Publishing Group is looking for a director of its high school division. Get the scoop on these openings below, and find additional just-posted jobs on mediabistro.com.

• Art/Production/Design Assistant Sixth&Spring Books (New York, NY)
• Managing Editor Workman Publishing, Co. (New York, NY)
• Legal Book Editor ALM (New York, NY)
• Editorial Assistant DC Literary Agency (Washington, DC)
• Director, High School Macmillan High Education Publishing Group (New York, NY)

For more job listings, go to the Mediabistro job board, and to post a job, visit our employer page. For real-time openings and employment news, follow @MBJobPost.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Bluefire has outlined instructions on how to install the Blue Reader for Android on the Kindle Fire in a blog post on its site. Here is more from the post:

• Tap “Settings” on your Kindle Fire (it’s the icon that looks like a gear)
• Tap “More”
• Scroll down until you see “Device”
• In the Device tab, set “Allow installation of Applications” to ON, and tap OK when you see the Warning prompt
• Tap here to download the Bluefire Reader APK (the Android app)

eBookNewser has more: “Remember that the app won’t update automatically with this workaround, so you’ll have to do that by manually reinstalling the app.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Previous recipients included Joan Baez, Bruce Springsteen, Arthur Miller, Studs Terkel and Garrison Keillor. Maddow is the third woman to receive the prestigious award and the first recipient under the age of 40.

Thomas Steinbeck, son of the great John Steinbeck, had this statement in the release: “My father would have adored Rachel Maddow … Listening to Rachel Maddow is like listening to Walter Cronkite. We have that kind of trust in her. When I watch Rachel Maddow, I feel like I’m part of an alliance. I hope she’s in it for the long haul, because we really need her.”

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Here’s more from the release: “Andi had written more than 40 percent of the book when she contacted and started collaborating with Swedish musician and YouTube sensation FreddeGredde. Together they developed the book’s soundtrack including two original songs: ‘Don’t Look Back’ and ‘This Falling World,’ lyrics written by Andi and music composed by Fredde.”

The book will be Open Road Integrated Media’s first original young-adult enhanced eBook. Buchanan’s Gift comes out on March 27th, priced at $16.99.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

DC followed Marvel with 31.41 percent of the retail market share and 35.77 percent of the unit market share. Image Comics, IDW Publishing and Dark Horse Comics followed the two giants. Diamond bases its numbers on total sales of comics, graphic novels and magazines to comic book specialty stores.

Newsarama has more: “As always, Diamond’s reported sales are for products ordered by comic book retailers, and not sales made to consumers in-store. Perhaps the best overall news is while January sales were down by single digits compared to December 2011, 2012 got off to a strong start compared to last year, with January comic book sales up 33.56% over January 2011 and graphic novel sales up 8.45%, for a total +31.38% jump on Year-to-Year sales.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Books-a-Million and Indigo Books have joined Barnes & Noble in deciding not to stock books published by Amazon in their brick and mortar bookstores.

Indigo vice-president Janet Eger told The Globe and Mail: “In our view Amazon’s actions are not in the long-term interests of the reading public or the publishing and book retailing industry, globally. Indigo Founder and CEO Heather Reisman has congratulated Barnes & Noble for taking a leadership stance on the matter, and offers kudos.” continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

HBO has released a new trailer to promote the second season of Game of Thrones. What do you think?

In the video embedded above, fans can catch a glimpse of some of the series popular characters, including Princess Daenerys, King Joffrey and Jon Snow. The show’s official YouTube channel contains nine other videos about the second season.

The first episode, titled “The North Remembers,” will premiere on April 1st. 

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Follow this link to participate as a book giver. Booksellers and librarians can also join the evening of literary activism.

Check it out: World Book Night 2012 will be held on April 23 – in the US and the UK – and we’re looking for 50,000 volunteer book givers to hand out 20 copies each – for a total of 1 million free special World Book Night paperbacks! In order to be a book giver you must be: Aged 16 or over and a resident of the United States. Able to pick up 20 copies of your book from your local bookshop or library. Committed to giving your books away on World Book Night to non or light readers.” (Via Edward Champion)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Writing letters this month? Letter writers around the globe have joined the Letter Writers Alliance, a place to meet new letter writing friends. Kathy Zadrozny and Donovan Beeson founded the group in 2007 to keep the art of letter writing alive.

Check it out: “With a combination of both online presence and in person gatherings we strive to give people the tools to maintain the art of letter writing. With over 2,000 members worldwide, the member site is the biggest part of the Alliance. We offer free printable downloads, exclusive member products, and vintage postal items.”

Follow this link to get a $3 membership. With the membership, you can join the group’s pen pal swap, a way to make new friends at the mailbox. This GalleyCat editor joined last week, receiving the letter posted above in the mail.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.