MAIN NEWS HEADLINES

March 30 – April 6, 2006 Edition

WSJ Considers

Book Summary

Service Via E-mail

NEW YORK, NY/3/27/06—According to an item in Publishers Marketplace March 27, the Wall Street Journal is considering a service to provide a paid subscription service to book summaries, which would be sent to subscribers by e-mail. The summaries, ranging between eight and 12 pages long, are seen as a threat to sales by some publishers, PM reports. Services offering summarized books can’t use the content without a publisher’s permission. Many publishers, however, work with such summary services to help promote book sales to targeted audiences such as business executives or religious or political groups.

Online sites such as Business Week and Summaries.com already offer similar services and carry an extensive inventory of book briefs.