Rosetta’s Kindle Single, "Beethoven’s Shadow" by acclaimed pianist Jonathan Biss went live on December 16th, Beethoven’s birthday. Thirty-one-year-old Biss is the first classical musician to have written a Kindle Single. "Beethoven’s Shadow" moved to #6 in the Singles bestseller list in its first 24 hours, and hit #1 in the Music category storewide and #5 in the Memoirs category storewide. Jonathan Biss and “Beethoven’s Shadow” were featured in the Daily Telegraph in the UK.

Barry Malzberg, editor of RosettaBooks’ collection of 23 new e-books drawn from the classic and celebrated ‘50s science fiction magazine Galaxy, was interviewed recently in SF Signal. Malzberg's Beyond Apollo won the first John W. Campbell Memorial Award for the best science-fiction novel of the year in 1973; he is also a two-time LOCUS Award winner whose works have been final-listed for the Nebula and Hugo awards.

In the interview, Barry said, “Galaxy was the best-written magazine of its time, maybe any time. As Fred Pohl, one of those writers, noted later, ‘Galaxy was perhaps the only medium in Joseph McCarthy's United States where the truth could be told.’ The great Galaxy stories were science fiction, of course, but they were also careful and sometimes audacious simulacra of the culture from which they came.” The first Galaxy editions from RosettaBooks include fiction by Robert Heinlein, Frederik Pohl, C.M. Kornbluth, Lester del Rey, Ray Bradbury and Kurt Vonnegut among others.

Read Barry’s full interview in SF Signal here.

RosettaBooks and its decade of growth are featured in Publishers Weekly. Rachel Deahl spoke with CEO Arthur Klebanoff for “RosettaBooks Comes of Age,” covering Rosetta’s expansion of its backlist and original content business.
 
“With the e-book market exploding, the times have finally caught up to Rosetta’s business model. According to Klebanoff, the company’s revenue is over $1.5 million and it currently has 300 e-books in its catalog, with expectations to pass the 500-title mark by the end of the year....Klebanoff expects to have more than 100 e-originals by the end of 2011.” 
 
Read the full article from the July 11th Publishers Weekly here.

A Contest to Launch a Science Fiction Novella Writer To be Published with Classic Galaxy Magazine Stories in New e-Book Editions

New York, NY – June 13, 2011 – RosettaBooks, a pioneer in digital publishing, has announced The Galaxy Project, a contest to discover science fiction writing talent, in conjunction with its release of new electronic editions of selections from the classic science fiction magazine Galaxy. The winning writer will be guaranteed e-book publication as part of The Galaxy Project collection, a set of the top novellas that appeared originally in Galaxy, and will also receive a $1,000 advance against royalties of 50% of net receipts to 2,500 copies and 60% of net receipts thereafter for world English digital rights. The contest is open now and the submission deadline is Friday, September 2, 2011.

Founded in 1950 by H.L. Gold, Galaxy was an immediate artistic success and published the notable science fiction writers of its time. Recognized for the acidly satiric, sometimes profoundly comic aspect of its best contributions, Galaxy had a lasting effect not only on science fiction but also on literature overall. Its standard was excellence in writing.

“The Galaxy Project is designed to celebrate the legacy of the iconic magazine Galaxy with the re-issue of some of its greatest selections in e-book form, and to carry forth its tradition of outstanding science fiction writing with a new generation of authors,” said Arthur Klebanoff, CEO, RosettaBooks. “We are pleased to present a panel of first class judges, who will be evaluating submissions to The Galaxy Project.”

The Galaxy Project judges include Robert Silverberg, author of more than 40 novels and 250 short stories in the genre and winner of the Nebula, Hugo and Locus Awards; David Drake, author of the Hammer’s Slammer series that originated in Galaxy magazine, quickly moved to novel form, and became one of the best known works of military science fiction in the genre’s history; and Barry N. Malzberg, whose Beyond Apollo won the first John W. Campbell Memorial Award for the best science fiction novel of the year in 1973. Malzberg twice won the Locus Award for nonfiction books of critical history and commentary on science fiction.

Manuscripts for novellas and novelettes should be 15,000 to 20,000 words in length. Authors will retain the copyright and all rights other than the initial digital use (per Galaxy magazine’s policy). For more information about The Galaxy Project writing contest and for a contest submission form, please visit www.thegalaxyproject.com.

 

RosettaBooks follows up Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs with Goodman’s New York Times bestseller Linda Goodman’s Love Signs, which sold more than 800,000 copies in print and addressed and answered the question asked by everyone familiar with astrology – How do I relate to someone of another sign?

For this first-ever e-book edition, RosettaBooks retained an editor to preserve the vast majority of Linda Goodman’s language and substitute examples that would make the books more relevant to our times. Linda Goodman wanted her readers to enjoy analogies.  Now they can again.

 Internationally known as an astrologer, Goodman also wrote poetry. There are more than 60 million copies of her books in print worldwide.

 

E-Books: Kindling for a New Era of Book Publishing,  6 pm at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law sponsored by the Copyright Society of the U.S.A., New York Chapter

Mid-month, RosettaBooks is publishing Linda Goodman’s classic New York Times bestseller Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs — the book that brought astrology into America’s living room and embodied the zeitgeist of the New Age movement — as an e-book in a new updated edition. In addition, RosettaBooks will release a 12-volume sign-by-sign e-book series, available as Kindle exclusives.
 
Internationally known as an astrologer, Goodman also wrote poetry. There are more than 60 million copies of her books in print worldwide.

In February 2011, RosettaBooks will release as e-books 10 titles from New York Times bestselling author and Grand Master of Horror Richard Matheson. In addition to Matheson’s I Am Legend and The Shrinking Man, which became the horror classic, "The Incredible Shrinking Man" on the big screen, RosettaBooks will publish Earthbound, Now You See It, Camp Pleasant, Hunger and Thirst, The Link, Lyrics, Mediums Rare, and Backteria and Other Improbable Tales. Lyrics and Backteria and Other Improbable Tales are being published for the first time. Matheson has added short introductions for several of the e-book editions. Priced at $8.99 each, the titles will be released simultaneously to all e-readert platforms sites. RosettaBooks will offer Matheson’s I Am Legend and The Shrinking Man as an e-book bundle for $9.99.
 
A Grand Master of Horror and winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement, Richard Matheson has also won the Edgar, the Hugo, the Spur, and the Writer's Guild awards. An acclaimed screenwriter, as well, he scripted episodes for "Twilight Zone" and "Star Trek," as well as Steven Spielberg’s first feature, the TV movie "Duel," from his own short story, and the TV movie "The Night Stalker."

In December 2009, RosettaBooks made worldwide news with its e-book release of Stephen R. Covey’s 15 million copy-selling The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Learn more in an article by Brad Stone and Motoko Rich in The New York Times.