Virginia Quarterly Review web editor Jane Friedman has created an infographic called “Understanding the Key Book Publishing Paths.”

Follow this link to see the whole infographic–what path did you choose?

Friedman identified the following five options: traditional publishing, partnership publishing, fully-assisted publishing, Do-It-Yourself (DIY) publishing with a distributor, and Do-It-Yourself (DIY) direct publishing. She also includes a section for “special and hard-to-classify cases.”

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Working with Open Road Integrated Media, Chicken Soup for the Soul Publishing will release the first 160 Books from the Chicken Soup for the Soul series as eBooks.

The Chicken Soup for the Soul series counts more than 200 titles. Founders/motivational speakers Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen collected the 101 stories found in book one. More than 500 million copies of these books have been sold all around the world.

Open Road CEO Jane Friedman had this statement in the release: “The Chicken Soup for the Soul series is perfectly suited to our milestone marketing campaigns. Open Road is delighted to be the digital publisher for much of this beloved series, and we are eager to connect these titles with readers of all ages.”

Mark Coker, founder of self-publishing platform Smashwords, criticized Pearson’s acquisition of self-publishing company Author Solutions in a recent post.

He suggested that the purchase was an investment in a business that makes money off of authors, rather than an investment in self-published authors. Coker wrote:

Does Pearson think that Author Solutions represents the future of indie publishing?  Author Solutions is one of the companies that put the “V” in vanity.  Author Solutions earn 2/3 or more of their income selling services and books to authors, not selling authors’ books to readers.  Does Pearson think so little of authors that they’ve decided they can earn more money selling them services than selling their books?  Don’t get me wrong, I have no qualm with indies investing in professional editing, proofreading and cover design. I encourage that.  There’s just something about this that feels icky.

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Jane Friedman has been appointed web editor at the Virginia Quarterly Review. She starts in June, tasked with expanding the literary journal’s “online and digital content and a larger social media presence.”

Friedman has served as the editorial director of Writer’s Digest, but she now serves as the assistant professor of e-media at the University of Cincinnati.

Virginia Quarterly Review publisher Jon Parrish Peede announced the news: “I had the pleasure of watching Jane serve on a National Endowment for the Arts funding panel, and I can state from firsthand experience that she is gifted, energetic, and deeply knowledgeable about publishing and new trends in the field. We are particularly excited about her leadership in developing a greater community of online readers for VQR.” (Via Calvin Reid)

How much should an eBook cost? To give publishers and authors some guidance, we’ve collected spirited defenses of seven different eBook prices–choose the price that works best for your writing.

According to a new and unscientific poll, Nathan Bransford found that 51 percent of his readers thought eBooks should be priced between $5 and $9.99. What is your favorite price point?

$0.99 Novelist John Locke sold more than one million eBooks with this price point: “When I saw that highly successful authors were charging $9.99 for an e-book, I thought that if I can make a profit at 99 cents, I no longer have to prove I’m as good as them … Rather, they have to prove they are ten times better than me.”

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Open Road Integrated Media hired children’s publishing veteran Barbara Marcus as a consultant for their endeavors to enter the children’s market. Marcus’ role also allows her to consult on international business development and general strategic issues for the company.

Marcus has been in publishing for more than 27 years. For 22 of them, she worked at Scholastic, eventually ascending to president and bringing the Harry Potter series to the United States. She currently acts as a consultant for a number of companies and organizations including the Penguin Young Readers Group, Knowledge Adventure, and Media Source.

Marcus commented: “I believe that Open Road will establish an important presence in children’s digital books and I am excited to be part of that effort. E-reading devices will become part of children’s backpacks and classrooms and as a result ebooks sales of children’s books will flourish.”

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Today a group of investors led by Kohlberg & Company acquired a majority of Christian publisher Thomas Nelson’s stock–a move that will resolve most of the publisher’s long term debt.

The publisher also announced some changes in the board of directors, adding Open Road CEO Jane Friedman and “senior executives of Kohlberg & Company” to the board. In addition, Thomas Nelson CEO Michael Hyatt has been named chairman of the board of directors.

Kohlberg & Company partner Chris Anderson had this statement: “Thomas Nelson remains the clear leader in the Christian publishing world and is poised for growth in this new era. Mike and his team have done an excellent job managing the company through the challenges of the recession and we stand behind them as we enter the future.”

Today the venture capital firm Kohlberg Ventures dramatically increased its investment in Open Road Integrated Media–adding $4 million to the $3 million it invested in the digital publisher last year.

The investment firm’s founder, Jim Kohlberg, had this statement: “With the convergence of expanding device options and the rapid adoption of ebooks, we strongly believe that the Open Road model and its team are uniquely positioned to succeed in the marketplace. We are pleased to continue our support through additional funding.”

Open Road CEO Jane Friedman helped found the digital publishing company, publishing, among other projects, the digital backlist for the great William Styron. Currently, the company supports eBook formats for Amazon Kindle, Apple iPad, B&N nook, and Sony Reader.

Today mediabistro.com’s eBook Summit turned up in a Vanity Fair feature, as the magazine asked: “Whoever said digital publishing was boring?”

Vanity Fair blogger Lauren Sozio wrote a long feature about the conference, focusing on Jane Friedman‘s new pubishing company and Douglas Rushkoff‘s scrappy keynote address. Earlier this week, GalleyCat collected all the Summit’s press coverage in one handy post.

The essay also pondered a presentation by Sony Digital president Steve Haber. Here’s an excerpt from the article: “Haber sealed his lecture with the fatalistic advice that “we have to cannibalize our own business because, if we don’t, someone will do it for us.’ This forecast comes from a man who, over his 20 years in consumer electronics, has seen a series of paradigm shifts from LP to CD–and digital to paper–get the better of the technophobes.” (Via eBookNewser)

If you can’t attend the inaugural launch of mediabistro.com’s eBook Summit tomorrow, don’t worry–you can watch select presentations live on your computer.

The special conference will be held on December 15 & 16 in New York at New World Stages. Online registration has closed, but readers can still register at the event. On this page, we will host a live stream of all the keynote speakers. The live stream schedule follows…

Tuesday, December 15:
9:30 am Jane Friedman and Jeffrey Sharp, co-founders of Open Road Integrated Media
12:00 pm–Katty Kay, author of ‘Womenomics’ and Washington correspondent BBC World News America.
2:45 pm–Brandon Badger, product manager of Google Books.
Wednesday, December 16:
9:30 am–Steve Haber, president of Sony’s Digital Reading Business Division.

You can follow the hashtag #ebooksummit on Twitter for live-feed version of the eBook Summit and join the conversation virtually. In addition, we’ve built a special Twitter list collecting the 140-character wisdom of registered summit attendees–a list that includes digital publishers, writers, and journalists. If you are attending and want to add your feed to the list, email GalleyCat.