Publishers Weekly, Frankfurt Live 97, October 16, 1997 "Laura Fillmore Comments on DOI""In creating the DOI system, publishers are putting themselves in the position of global information architects, which in a new and evolving commercial system, may be seen as quite a strong and appropriate position."
Publishers Weekly, July 1997
"The Road Ahead: Publishing visionaries look at the changes that digital technology might bring""What we need ... is the recognition of "cogniright," the freedom and the right to think online, and a royalty model that takes this freedom into account.
"An author's work ultimately achieves its value from being used, from being applied by its readers. On The Internet, it's more important to determine how a work is accessed, and who has access to it, than it is to try and prevent copying. It's like scholarly publishing, in a sense. Scientists achieve recognition by how many people footnote their work and how widely their thoughts are absorbed and referenced among their peers, not by how many copies of a journal containing their article are circulated."
"Consequently, the online commercial publishing royalty model has to involve the reader in a more direct way than the print model does. This means that the royalties an author gets from publishing online will most likely be a direct result from how many times their work is accessed and applied or referred to downstream by the readers. With the advent of micro financial transactions, this model can work."
Publishers Weekly, June 26, 1995
"OBS Available in 4 Languages on Net""The Online Bookstore announced a new agreement with EUnet, the largest Internet provider in Europe and North Africa, to present OBS in four languages.
"OBS founder Laura Fillmore said that EUnet connects more than 200,000 companies in Europe and North Africa through the Net. She also noted that the OBS will be selling Time Warner's new Quick Read series, 14 downloadable hypertext titles that provide searching and links to Net resources, before the titles are available in retail stores this fall.
"OBS is also providing an online version of Nicholas Negroponte's bestselling `Being Digital', complete with what Fillmore describes as a combination of commercial links sponsored by advertisers and un-sponsored editorial links that serve to "contexualize" the passages in which they are found. When clicked with a mouse, the links log the user on to other Web sites with related information. Fillmore described the commercial links as "the gum-ball machine" billing model, one that charges advertisers for only the number of people who actually click on their particular icons. 'It allows the sponsor to customize its advertising to the text.'"
Publishers Weekly, June 26, 1995
"ABA '95 Virtual Reality Check: Computer Publishers Walk The World Wide Web""One interesting sidelight: Penguin USA had no booth at the show this year, but there was a Penguin prescence. The Online Bookstore and Bookwire had live Internet connections showing books of many publishers, including Penguin. Given logistic complaints, maybe the Virtual ABA is the wave of the future."
Publishers Weekly, May 29, 1995
"Working on the World Wide Web: Publishers discover the Internet in business""The World Wide Web can also be used to deliver electronic editions of books, which some publishers use as a marketing technique to boost sales of bound books. The McGraw-Hill Professional Book Group reports unexpected success in sales of its title Paperless Publishing as a result of making the book available free through the Online BookStore, a Web site operated by electronic publishing pioneer Laura Fillmore."
Publishers Weekly, October 3, 1994
"Nolo, Catbird Presses Go Online: Legal Advice, a Look at Editing""Robert Wechsler, founder an publisher of Catbird Press in North Haven, Conn., told PW that Catbird will be collaborating with Laura Fillmore and her Online BookStore 'to use technology to illustrate something old-fashioned'--the book editing process...
"Anyone with Internet access can observe the editing process or add their own comments...
"The process was demonstrated by Laura Fillmore at the Meckler Electronic Book Conference in New York City and will be again at the Frankfurt Book Fair a week later."
Publishers Weekly, February 28, 1994
"PSP Meeting: Facing Up to Electronic Publishing""Among the New Technologies & Services exhibits, the most popular spot was the Internet Room where Laura Fillmore, president of the Online BookStore (OBS), was demonstrating the world's first 'distributed book.' Adrian Butash's collection of table prayers from the world's religions called Bless This Food, published by Delacorte, was introduced to the world at the AAP/PSP meeting and is offered by OBS on the Internet in 'distributed' form, with links to other resources and sites all over the Internet, using the free software program Mosaic."
Publishers Weekly, November 22, 1993
"Like a Book on a Wire""Such experimentation with Online publishing has only just begun among trade book publishers...
"...some technologists are now suggesting that the CD-ROM may only be an interim step to something bigger. They foresee a largely paperless and diskless future, when the much heralded information superhighway will be the chief pathway for books as well as video, phone traffic, music and computer data...
"But Fillmore says that timeliness and cost reductions are not the main reason publishers should be interested in the online medium. The principal advantages, she says, have to do with the things you cannot do in print, or even on CD-ROM...
"Many publishers simply want to know the bottom line: Is online publishing good or bad for the industry? Many publishers will rue the day when people stop going to bookstores and instead just browse the network from the confines of their homes. But others say that online publishing will expand the industry, without replacing paper publishing...
"But one thing is for sure: Book publishers need to be involved, if only to assure that the information super highway is not just a vast video-on-demand shopping mall. As all forms of other media are zooming along the superhighway, according to Fillmore, publishers are responsible for keeping alive the works upon which the past five centuries of Western civilization have been built. 'Publishers, as major content holders, need to get on the bus,' she warns. 'The capability of not using words is right around the corner. If we as a culture don't preserve our words, then there goes our abstract thought.'"
Publishers Weekly, October, 1993
"New On Internet: Stephen King, Publisher Catalogues"Julie Hansen, director of electronic publishing for Penguin USA, said it was the first time a commercial book publisher has 'published' an electronic first serial.
"The story, 'Umney's Last Case" will appear through the Online BookStore..."
Publishers Weekly, February 1, 1993
"OnLine BookStore to Deliver Full Text Books""The future has arrived for electronic delivery of books. Editorial Inc. of Rockport, Mass., and Software Tool & Die, in Brookline, Mass., have joined forces to set up the Online BookStore on Internet, the first service to deliver full text and graphic files of books from Internet to ordinary desktop PC users."