2007 was fun, wasn’t it? Between Judith Regan, O.J. Simpson, Amazon’s Kindle, the AMS bankruptcy, and James Frey vs. Oprah redux, there was plenty of shock, titillation, and Schadenfreude to go around. (We’re pointedly excluding a certain boy wizard. Months later, we’re still fatigued.) But bigger than any one of these stories was the industry’s continued march into the brave new world of technology.

And yeah, yeah, years in review are so rampant come January, but 2007 wasn’t just any year. It saw the digital world and the book world become slightly less uncomfortable bedfellows. Shelfari, LibraryThing, and GoodReads brought social networking to book lovers, e-books continued their long and arduous journey to popular consumption, and publishing in general proved itself more savvy online. That’s not to say the more disturbing trends didn’t continue—independent bookstores dropped like flies (although MySpace came to the rescue in a few instances) and the battle to keep book review sections in newspapers raged on as literary bloggers multiplied. Before moving into exciting, uncharted 2008 (ready for 979 ISBN prefixes?), the Big Bad Book Blog presents a brief overview of some of the more interesting developments of 2007.

Winter

• Wowio.com, an ad-supported site that offers free e-books, officially launches when it strikes a deal for one hundred of Oxford University Press’s titles.
• The Last Messages, an epistolary novel for the 21st century, is published in Helsinki. It consists entirely of text messages.
• Amazon invests in Shelfari, giving the online bookshelf social site a huge boost.
• HarperCollins and Random House launch competing widgets, allowing readers to browse inside their titles from blogs and other sites. Random House now has over 600,000 widgets on 2,000 sites, according to Publishing Trends.
• Microsoft differentiates Live Book Search, its online book search program, from Google Book Search. What’s the difference? We respect copyrights, Microsoft says.

Spring

• Random House starts a book club in the Second Life “metaverse.”
• Mignon Fogarty, a.k.a. Grammar Girl, compiles an audiobook from her popular podcast, which she proceeds to sell on iTunes. She also appears on Oprah, so this must’ve been important.
• Macmillian sees huge viral marketing success for Quirkology. A video clip supporting the book reached 800,000 viewers, according to Publishing News.
• The Espresso Book Machine, which prints books on-demand in a matter of minutes, is unveiled and later installed in the New York Public Library.

Summer

• Roberto Bernocco releases Compagni di Viaggo, a 384-page novel the Italian author wrote on his cell phone.
• First annual O’Reilly Tools of Change conference is held in San Jose, California.
• Simon & Schuster launch bookvideos.tv, which features interviews of over 40 authors.
• Richard Charkin, head of Macmillan in the UK, steals laptops from Google’s BEA booth, saying he’s just playing the same “trick” on them they play on authors with copyrighted work.
• Microsoft adds copyrighted material to its Live Book Search; Google offers co-branded book search to member publishers of Google Book Search.
• Penguin joins the e4book initiative, announcing plans to ask all business partners transact business completely electronically in 2008.

Fall

• Pioneering a new university publishing model, Rice University releases Images of Memorable Cases, one of the first titles in its return to publishing after a ten-year hiatus. The book is formatted digitally by Connexions, and available in a hard copy from print-on-demand company QOOP.
• Amazon finally releases the much buzzed-about Kindle, hoping to jump start the e-book market. EV-DO capable and reportedly quite functional, the device sells out in a matter of hours, although it received mixed reviews from some sources—primarily for its hefty $399 price tag. Many find it “ugly.”
• Conrad Black’s myriad fans are delighted when he begins using the Margaret Atwood’s LongPen, a device that allows him to sign books remotely by way of a touchpad connected to an “autopen” in the store. Black was unable to promote his Nixon biography as he was confined to his Chicago home before being sentenced to six and a half years in prison for fraud and obstruction of justice.

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Writers: Put away that inkwell and feather for a while and get hip to podcasts. We’ve already shown you the elements of a superb podcast; now we’ve prepared a list of podcast resources to a) strengthen your knowledge of the book industry and the writerly craft on an ongoing basis and b) give you ideas to cop for your own syndicated series. We hope as you explore them you’ll get a feel for the wide range of uses these little audio phenomena can be put to, and—if you’re one of those obsessed, reclusive, technologically clueless writer types—pick up some valuable new-media skills.

For your listening pleasure, a handpicked selection of writing/publishing podcasts:

Fiction

• AmericanWriters.com offers full podcasts on fiction writing (”The Shadow in the Hero,” “How to Open Your Story”) and quick, morsel-sized audio tips.
• Write Where You Belong: The Creative Writing Podcast is therapy for members of the writing community experiencing creative problems. Let Steve Yudewitz walk you through overcoming writer’s block and deciding if it’s time to throw in the towel on your writing career.
• Attendance at the Odyssey Writing Workshop will not only cost you tuition, but will require you to get dressed to hear the lectures. So, in lieu of paying a fee, brushing your teeth, and putting on pants, opt instead for the free monthly podcast, which offers advice from top fantasy, sci-fi, and horror writers.
• At FictionRight, husband-and-wife team Alan and Rebecca Lickiss cover fiction technique, interview fellow authors, and provide writing exercises.

Business

• 800-CEO-READ, supplier of business titles to corporations and other organizations, hosts a series of interviews, updated monthly, with their top authors.
• From HarperCollins Canada, Foreword Thinking is a podcast on business and motivational titles. Host Mitch Joel picks the greatest entrepreneurial brains in the book business.

Children’s

• Recorded over the faint, comforting din of an Ottawa coffee shop, Just One More Book features satisfyingly specialized discussions on “the children’s books we love and why we love them.” Break out the apple juice and sippy cup for the full effect.
• Childrensbookradio.com interviews kiddie lit authors who talk about what it takes to make a good read for the kids.
• Book Voyages gives listeners an elementary school library media specialist’s take on the children’s book market.

Miscellaneous

• When it comes to verb agreement, comma placement, misplaced modifiers, and a host of other common punctuational and syntactical trip-ups, the prolific Grammar Girl’s got you covered. Her “Quick & Dirty Tips” entertain and inform.
• The uselessness of most of the information at A Way With Words doesn’t mean it isn’t fascinating and addictive. Renegade word lovers Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett explore etymology and the origins of strange phrases, among other linguistic trivia. The Collective Noun Contest is a highlight.
• The Writing Show supplies wide-ranging audio resources to authors from a different guest each week, from analysis of self-publishing contracts to strategies for writing historical fiction to developing and packaging scripts for Hollywood.
• Didn’t make BookExpo this year? BookExpoCast.com has many of the highlight events and panel available via (you guessed it) podcast. Archives extend back to the 2006 expo.

Bad news for those of you who lament theater marquees glutted with remakes, sequels, and cinematic versions of preexisting media: On October 19th, the partnership announced nearly two years ago between Random House and Focus Features will come to fruition with the release of Reservation Road. Based on the novel by John Burnham Schwartz, Random House is assuredly hoping the film will be an auspicious beginning to a new model that–if successful–guarantees large-scale book sales. Not to be left out, HarperCollins announced a deal of its own this week; the publisher will enter into a similar “strategic partnership” with Sharp Independent, giving the New York studio access to material in HarperCollins’ heavyweight-laden roster.

From a marketing standpoint: genius. A trade paperback edition of Reservation Road will coincide with the film’s release date later this month, and a mass market paperback is also newly available. There’s no question that the increased visibility afforded to Schwartz’s work by the big screen will help move books. And for better or worse, the Hollywood touch appeals to many browsers who want Cusack on their High Fidelity, Witherspoon on their Vanity Fair. Although the trade paperback of Reservation Road is mercifully restrained, the mass market paperback’s cover gives the lead actors from the film that big-dramatic-face treatment employed by so many DVD covers.

One of the obstacles to the arrangement is that an experienced literary agent often holds film rights and sells them off separately, which may exclude some of Random House’s backlist, according to Stephen Zeitchik of Variety. There is also the issue of creative control: In the deal struck between Focus and Random House, the two entities would collaborate on the film from start to finish, jointly obtaining rights, overseeing production, selecting the director, and handling marketing and publicity, which may render the movies Random House Films produces an over-cooked broth. And where does the author fit in to all this? “[I]f writers are selling their work to be made into a film, they must be willing to relinquish artistic control of every aspect of their work,” said Julian Friedman of Blake Friedman Literary and Script agents in a talk at the London Book Fair last year.

There’s also no way to tell how the agreement will affect acquisition of new titles by Random House—will a new component of manuscript evaluation be megaplex viability? Will the very personal act of writing a novel be compromised by the ultracollaborative movie-making process? Fortunately, Random House exercised good taste in choosing a partner for this venture; Focus Features has an impressive literary track record that includes film versions of The Pianist, The Constant Gardener, and Brokeback Mountain. Here’s hoping for continued output of creative, thoughtful adaptations. If handled well, this situation could provide helpful business symbiosis for both industries as well as quality artistic output.

As Variety’s Stephen Zeitchik also points out, books and film have long coexisted within the same conglomerate, but never before have in-house deals of this scope been struck. And if you’ll excuse a dated buzzword, the synergy doesn’t end with movies of Random House books; the publisher would also get dibs on novelizations of original screenplays.

Upcoming projects from Random House Films include Dean Koontz’s The Husband, Yasmina Khadra’s The Attack, and Bob Drogin’s Curveball.

No longer content with domination of AM radio, conservative pundits are releasing books in droves. Here’s a rundown of the latest unapologetically opinionated publications from the right:

• Talk radio personality and former clerk to Clarence Thomas (who has his own new release) Laura Ingraham hit the New York Times bestseller list with Power to the People (Regnery, $27.95), her third book. Take that, liberal elite media! Among other things, Ingraham analyzes the vapid tabloid culture of 21st century America.
• Ingraham’s leggier doppelgänger, Ann Coulter, also has a new one; in If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans (Crown Forum, $24.95), Coulter doles out more of her trademark outspoken commentary on Hillary, illegal aliens, and global warming. She’s been hovering around Amazon.com’s top 10 since the book’s Oct. 2 release.
• And it’s a big month for the granddaddy of them all: Bill O’Reilly will release Kids Are Americans Too (William Morrow, $24.95) on Oct. 16, and his seminal Culture Warrior will come out in paperback on the 9th.

Released yesterday, ex-Fed chairman Alan Greenspan’s The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World (Penguin Press, $35.00) is making headlines for its scathing indictment of the Bush administration’s fiscal irresponsibility. But almost as juicy–at least for the few of us with a taste for very minor book industry scandals–is when, precisely, those headlines were printed. Penguin supplied advance copies with the stipulation that stories be withheld until the book’s official release on Monday, September 17. The Wall Street Journal sidestepped that little rule, though, by purchasing a copy at an eager New York-area retailer and posting an account of Greenspan’s much-anticipated comments on its Web site Friday night. Once the embargo was broken, other news outlets were free to go to press with their own stories, albeit with the knowledge they’d been scooped.

Last year, the New York Times had the distinction of beating Bob Woodward to the punch with a premature feature on his State of Denial, courtesy of a gun-jumping bookseller. In fact, embargo breaking is something of a NYT specialty: They did the same thing with Woodward’s previous book. And with the Carly Fiorina memoir–despite a deal between Newsweek and Penguin for exclusive rights to the story. (And then the NYT did the unforgivable, publishing Harry Potter spoilers.)

Although Penguin says it forces any retailers it finds selling books early to remove them from shelves, procuring high-profile books before release date doesn’t seem too difficult. No word on whether the nameless booksellers sell embargoed material out of ignorance or desperation for sales of any kind.

Greenspan’s 544-page memoir/economic commentary is currently Amazon.com’s top seller.

+Greenspan on 60 Minutes
+Greenspan at BEA
+NYT review

A federal judge ruled last week that Valerie Plame cannot reveal the dates of her employ at the CIA in her upcoming autobiography Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House. Plame and Simon & Schuster filed suit against the agency when the CIA Publications Review Board decided that the memoir was fine–except for those dates. Thing is, the dates had already been widely reported and published in the Congressional Record (and are on Wikipedia). Judge Barbara Jones says, however, she was swayed to bar the dates from the book by a letter from the CIA. What did it say? Even S&S and Plame don’t know, since that letter was classified.

The publisher hasn’t said whether it will appeal the ruling, but the book seems to still be on track. You can already order it on Amazon! (Current user tags: “neocon garbage” (4), “glorified excrement” (5), and the succinct “Evil” (3).) Plame’s looking fetching on the cover, but the lack of classic spy imagery is disappointing.

Related books:

• Plame’s less hot husband Joseph Wilson wrote a door stopping account of the leak (The Politics of Truth, Carroll & Graf, $16.95) that was well-reviewed, but failed to reach sales of hotcake proportions.
• Lewis Libby authored a novel back in 199

Attention Potter fans: Harry DIES! Just kidding. We don’t know. We would if we’d pre-ordered from DeepDiscount.com, though. Scholastic Inc., Potter’s US publisher, announced “immediate legal action” against both aforementioned e-tailer and distributor Levy Home Entertainment for shipping books ahead of the 12:01 AM Saturday release. Wednesday’s statement from Scholastic alleges forbidden copies made it to customers as early as Tuesday the 17th.

Rowling herself pleaded with readers to keep plot developments hush-hush, and Scholastic asks that early recipients hide the illicit packages. Uh-huh. Reports indicate that most early copies are safely stowed in padlocked sock drawers across the nation, but at least one spoilsport uploaded photos of the whole thing to Gaia Online.

Diehard Pottermaniacs are advised to stay indoors, avoiding all forms of media, earplugs firmly in place, until tentatively heading to their local big-box bookstores for the magic moment tomorrow night.

The 2008 presidential election might seem far away, but cable news indicates otherwise. This is the first of an oh-so-relevant series about books by or about politicians, wannabe politicians, talking heads, and other myriad wonks. Some weeks there might be a column. Some weeks there might just be what we think are pithy headlines and commentary and a few links. Some weeks, if we’re feeling frisky, we might post a picture of a random object–say, a solar flare or a covered wagon–just to leave you wondering what possible relevance it has to the accompanying commentary.

In this first edition: The ‘Politics’ shelves of bookstores are swelling with books on presidential hopefuls. Last month was quite Hillary heavy.

• Her Way (Little, Brown & Company, $29.99) by Don Van Natta, Jr., and Jeff Gerth is raising a lot of hoopla for its indication that the Clintons had a “20-year plan” to dominate American politics, Bill first, Hillary second. Can’t you just picture the Clintons sitting crosslegged in a candlelit Arkansas basement, pricking themselves with pins for a blood pact? Awww. Despite an endorsement from Sean Hannity and a title that makes its subject sound like a petulant thirteen-year-old, the book insists it’s balanced. Van Natta says he may even vote for Hillary.
• A Woman in Charge (Knopf, $27.95) by Carl Bernstein seems to be more popular. Her Way’s Amazon.com peak was a sales rank of 257, and it now languishes in the 3000’s. Bernstein’s reportedly more evenhanded bio hasn’t dipped below 500; currently it’s at a healthy 131. The New York Times liked this one better, too. Do readers find this book less biased, or do they just want to save a couple of bucks on cover price? We may never know.
• The intentions of Bay Buchanan’s Extreme Makeover of Hillary (Rodham) Clinton (Regenery Publishing, Inc., $27.95), which came out in May, are pretty clear from the get-go. The cover shows Hillary as a looming, shadowy mass of crow’s feet and double chins (a far cry from the black-turtlenecked Lifetime-special treatment of her 2004 autobiography). The flap copy says the author–Pat’s sister–will reveal Hillary’s calculating switch from far left to center as she looks to the White House. Shucks. Considering the title, I thought the book was going to be about scandalous eye lifts and chin implants.

Love or or hate her, there’s a Hillary book for you.

Full analyses of Van Natta, Gerth, and Bernstein’s books here and here.

Barnes & Noble made a business-savvy move when it began publishing those cheap, bland-looking editions of public domain classics and piling them high on prominent tables in 2003. No, no, they weren’t trying to steal sales from other publishers––rather, the line “celebrates the genius of the human heart.”

Borders announced its retaliation in this slo-mo battle of the titans this week: the publication of The Hammer, a collection of Sports Illustrated columns celebrating the life and times of Barry-Bonds-threatened grand slammer Hank Aaron. The Hammer is the second in the chain’s plan to publish exclusive, proprietary books. Last month, the program’s first book, screenwriter Nick Santora’s Slip and Fall, became a Wall Street Journal bestseller despite being sold exclusively through Borders-owned outlets. And neo-soul fans rejoice: among upcoming titles is a John Legend tour book.

All this is a bit of Starbucks-inspired genius, of course, exempting Borders from distribution complexities and co-op space gouging and giving them the Oprahesque ability to select titles that automatically get gargantuan marketing support. Somewhere, Barnes & Noble lies in wait, plotting its entrance into the corporate tastemaking arena, and the fate of readers across the nation hangs in the balance.

Italian author Robert Bernocco can text better than a caffeinated tween. Instead of texting friends to avoid having to talk to them like the rest of us do, Bernocco used the T9 function on his cell phone to write his 384-page science fiction novel, Compagni di Viaggo (Fellow Travelers), available on Lulu.com.

“Only a few years ago I would have struggled to find both the time and the publisher to enable me to create this book,” Bernocco said in a release. He wrote the book during his train commutes to and from work and later downloaded his paragraphs to his home computer for revision. “Thanks to my Nokia and Lulu, I am now proud to be a published author.”

Texting a novel is cute and all, but will it spark a new trend? Will text-happy teenagers feel inspired to write their own angst-ridden novellas? Sources say no.