Mereja

Author: Laura Hazard Owen

  • Amazon Publishing promises authors faster royalty payments

    Amazon Publishing said in a letter to literary agents Monday that it will start paying its authors royalties on a monthly basis, up from every three months.

    “In this digital age, we don’t see why authors should have to wait six months to be paid,” Amazon’s VP of publishing Jeff Belle wrote in the letter. “Beginning with our March payment cycle, we will move to paying our authors on a monthly basis. More specifically: each month’s royalties will be released within 60 days of the end of that month, every month.  For example, royalties for sales in January will be released by March 31, royalties for sales in February will be released by April 30, etc.”

    Most publishing houses pay royalties twice a year. Authors who self-publish through Amazon’s KDP and Createspace lready receive monthly royalties.

    Belle also wrote that “Based on sales in February, Amazon Publishing now ranks as the 5th largest publisher on the U.S. Kindle platform (excluding free downloads but including KOLL loans, for which we pay authors).”

    Full letter:

    Friends,

    The team at Amazon Publishing has been working to continually improve our business, with the goal of turning efficiencies into higher author royalties, faster payments and even more support for the books we publish.  Building a new business can take time and patience, and the feedback and encouragement we’ve received along the way from you has been invaluable in making us better.

    We’re particularly excited to tell you about upcoming changes to the way we pay royalties.  In this digital age, we don’t see why authors should have to wait six months to be paid.  Beginning with our March payment cycle, we will move to paying our authors on a monthly basis.  More specifically: each month’s royalties will be released within 60 days of the end of that month, every month.  For example, royalties for sales in January will be released by March 31, royalties for sales in February will be released by April 30, etc.

    We recognize this may create a little extra paperwork in some cases, but we feel this change is in the best interests of authors — we hope you’ll agree.  As with any such change in our business, our tireless Author Relations team is standing by to answer any questions you may have on this topic.

    In other news, 2013 is off to a strong start.  Based on sales in February, Amazon Publishing now ranks as the 5th largest publisher on the US Kindle platform (excluding free downloads but including KOLL loans, for which we pay authors).  The latest book to reach the 100,000 copy threshold is 47North’s THE MONGOLIAD: BOOK ONE, the first installment in the epic Foreworld saga, written by Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear, Erik Bear, Joseph Brassey, Mark Teppo, Nicole Galland and Cooper Moo, which surpassed 100,000 copies in February.  Similarly, CRAZY LITTLE THING by Montlake author Tracy Brogan continues up the Kindle charts, also surpassing 100,000 copies in the last week of February.  Another Montlake bestseller, NOT QUITE DATING by Catherine Bybee exceeded the 100,000 copy milestone just last week as well.  Also of note is Christina McKenna’s “wittily and winningly-detailed” debut novel THE MISREMEMBERED MAN, which we acquired from Toby Press and re-published under AmazonEncore in 2010, re-entered the Kindle Top 10 in February on the strength of our backlist promotion, and is now on the verge of the 100,000 copy mark as a result.

    Our AmazonCrossing imprint has also been on a roll lately. In January, THE BEGGAR KING by Oliver Pötzsch, the third installment in the bestselling Hangman’s Daughter series, debuted in the Kindle Top 10 to outstanding reviews, and just today surpassed 100,000 copies.  Translated from German by Lee Chadeayne, the Hangman’s Daughter series has been a breakout success, with over 800,000 copies sold to date (and occupying the top 4 slots in the US Kindle store, as of this writing).  In February, we launched the latest in our series of translations from Icelandic with REPLY TO A LETTER FROM  HELGA by Bergsveinn Birgisson, which garnered immediate praise as “a stunning work of art — resonant, earthy, heartbreaking”.  Meanwhile, in the other direction, our translations from English into German continue to surpass our expectations as well.  ABDUCTED by T.R. Ragan, itself a Kindle bestseller in the US and UK, was translated into German by AmazonCrossing as IM NETZ DES SPINNENMANNS in November, where it quickly reached #1 in our German Kindle store (combined English and German copies have already surpassed 100,000).  In all, for the month of February, six AmazonCrossing titles reached the Kindle Top 10 in Germany.

    Meanwhile, Kindle Serials also continues to outperform our expectations.  Since the release of the first episode in its serialization, OPTION TO KILL by Andrew Peterson has sold over 70,000 copies and is now available as a complete book in both Kindle and trade paperback. And we are excited to see PINES, Blake Crouch’s Kindle bestseller, which has been called a “genre-bending, completely riveting thrill ride” of a novel, going into development at Fox and FX, with the pilot to be directed by M. Night Shamalyan.

    We’re pleased with this strong growth overall, and in particular the results of our US and German translation publishing businesses, as well as Kindle Serials.  And yet we are also quite aware of the many improvements and inventions that lie ahead —as always your feedback is welcome and appreciated.  If you have any suggestions or questions about the new royalties process, or anything else about Amazon Publishing, please feel free to reach out to me directly.  –Jeff

    Jeff Belle
    Vice President
    Amazon Publishing

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  • Citing “flat-lined” sales, Andrew Sullivan’s Dish lowers paywall to 5 free stories every 60 days

    The Dish is making its paywall stricter in its second month, Andrew Sullivan wrote Monday. He cited sales that “flat-lined once the meter reset for most people after March 8,” and the fact that people were accessing the site from multiple devices and thus increasing their limit of free stories.

    Therefore, Sullivan writes, “we’ve decided to lower the meter to five free read-ons and extend the reset period from 30 days to 60 days. In all other respects, the meter will remain the same.” That’s 2.5 free read-on stories per 30 days — a big decrease from the seven per month that had been allowed. (“Read-on” stories refers to longer stories on the site; much content, including link posts, remains free.)

    Sullivan, who will be speaking about pay models at paidContent Live on April 17 in New York, notes that The Dish has collected $644,000 in revenue since announcing its $19.99-per-year subscription in January. That’s up $33,000 since February 25, when we suggested The Dish might need to tweak its paywall, and a little over two-thirds of the way to its $900,000 goal.

    Sullivan promised that new content will come with the tightened meter: “[We] are eager to begin commissioning long-form journalism and other projects like podcasting, and we can’t begin that in earnest until we have our basic operations funded.”

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    • J. K. Rowling’s Pottermore to launch on PlayStation Home

      J. K. Rowling’s virtual Harry Potter community Pottermore is launching on Sony’s PlayStation Home, the company’s free social gaming platform. Users of Pottermore’s website will be able to link their Pottermore.com accounts to their PlayStation Network IDs.

      Pottermore at Playstation Home will be available in April. According to an announcement on Pottermore’s blog, “you’ll be able to actually step inside Diagon Alley™ and board the Hogwarts™ Express as an Avatar, and once inside these 3D environments, experience the mayhem of book herding, test your knowledge with a Pottermore quiz, share and collect Trading Cards, and take part in an illicit Wizard’s Duel.”

      “Pottermore reaches across multiple digital platforms, and our ongoing partnership with Sony has allowed us to forge this exciting connection with Playstation Home,” Pottermore CEO Charlie Redmayne said in a statement, “creating the most immersive experience possible within that space and giving users wonderful new ways to explore locations from the Harry Potter stories.”

      Sony is a Pottermore partner, and last November the companies launched a Harry Potter-themed PS3 game, “Wonderbook: Book of Spells.”

      Pottermore launched as a digital bookstore in March 2012 and opened up its interactive features the following month. The most recent available user stats are from October 12, when Redmayne said at the Publishers Launch Conference in Frankfurt that the site had 36 million unique users.

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    • Sony ends 20p price promotion in its UK Reader Store

      Sony is at least temporarily ending the 20p price promotion in the U.K. Reader Store, The Bookseller reported Monday. The 20p promotion, which had been running since July 2012, sold selected ebooks for 20 pence (USD $0.30).

      Amazon U.K. matched all of Sony’s prices, leading to a deeply discounted market for many ebooks and causing concern for publishers about the devaluation of their product (even though the retailers were paying them the full prices on the discounted ebooks).

      The end of the 20p promotion is tied to Sony’s redesign of its U.K. digital bookstore. “Discounted 20p pricing is not currently offered on the newly relaunched UK Reader Store,” a Sony rep told The Bookseller. “However, pricing is always subject to revision. The duration of our 20p pricing is indicative of our commitment to provide great eBooks at exceptionally accessible prices, which is a philosophy we continue to hold.”

      Many of the books included in the promotion shot up U.K. bestseller lists, but some publishers and others were concerned that the promotions would devalue ebooks by permanently lowering the prices that consumers were willing to pay. Those concerns may be lessened now, though Sony could always start its 20p promotion again — or Amazon could start one.

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    • Random House gives Da Vinci Code ebooks away free to promote Dan Brown’s new book

      Random House’s Doubleday is giving away free digital copies of Dan Brown’s bestselling book The Da Vinci Code for a week in order to promote his upcoming book, Inferno.

      Inferno is set to be released on May 14. The New York Times reports that the free Da Vinci Code ebooks will include the prologue and first chapter of Inferno.

      The Da Vinci Code, first published in 2003, sold over 81 million copies. The promotion runs through March 24 in the U.S. and Canada at all digital bookstores.

      Update: Several readers had asked where they can download the books. Links:

      Nook

      Kindle

      Sony

      Kobo

      iTunes [discount not appearing yet, but keep checking]

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      • The 14 most outrageous (fake) headlines from Buzzfeed’s new business section

        Buzzfeed is launching a business section next week, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

        What might that section look like? A selection compiled from Twitter and GigaOM/paidContent staff:

        29 Signs Your CFO Might Be Drunk

        This Was The Worst Leveraged Buyout Takeover Ever

        Spot The Corgi Hiding In This Pile Of Hundred Dollar Bills

        Check Out All The Weird Things For Sale On This Japanese Website

        17 Adorable Pictures of Tax-Deferred Bond Investment Products

        Grumpy Cat Makes More Money Than You Do

        This Office Fridge Has An Epic Amount Of Beer In It

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        • Google is launching an ebook line based on its augmented reality game Ingress

          Niantic Labs, the startup division within Google, is launching a line of ebooks based on its augmented reality, massive multiplayer online video game Ingress. Ingress, an Android game that launched last November, is invite-only and currently in beta.

          Publishers Lunch reported on Friday that the Ingress tie-in ebooks will be part of a line called “The Alignment.” They’re written by Thomas Greanias, who also wrote the New York Times bestselling trilogies “Raising Atlantis” and “Dominium Dei.” The first book, The Alignment: Ingress, will be available in the Google Play store on April 2 and will then be released to other digital bookstores.

          The books will tie into the games and feature embedded codes and other perks for players. According to Publishers Lunch, the books will be “co-published by Niantic and his own @tlantis Books,” and print versions may follow the digital versions.

          Niantic Labs is also behind a number of other projects, including Google’s new Field Trip app.

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          • Amazon Publishing launches literary fiction imprint, Little A

            Amazon Publishing is launching a new imprint, called Little A, that will publish literary fiction — novels and collections of stories — and memoir.

            Little A joins Amazon’s six other imprints, which focus on genres like romance and science fiction. Until now, literary fiction had been published under the general Amazon Publishing division in New York, and Little A will be part of that division.

            Upcoming titles from Little A will include James Franco’s novel Actors Anonymous — which Larry Kirshbaum signed back in 2011, and which will be published this October — among others. A digital-only series called Day One will focus on “short stories from debut writers”; those will be for sale in the Kindle Singles store.

            As with other titles from Amazon’s New York division, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s New Harvest imprint will distribute print versions of Little A titles.

            Here’s the full mini-announcement:

            “Little A is a literary fiction imprint under the Amazon Publishing Group, publishing novels, memoirs and story collections. The first titles to be published under Little A are A.L. Kennedy’s The Blue Book (on sale now), an intricate, heartbreaking story of psychics and cruise ships by the dazzling U.K. author; Jake Arnott’s The House of Rumour (on sale 3/19/13), which weaves the secret histories of science fiction and espionage into a modern classic; Jenny Davidson’s The Magic Circle (on sale 3/26/13), a literary thriller about the culture of gaming; and Shawn Vestal’ s Godforsaken Idaho (on sale 4/2/13), stories of the afterlife, the rugged Northwest, and the early days of Mormonism by a ferociously imaginative new writer. Other 2013 Little A titles will include Dan Kennedy’s American Spirit (on sale 5/28/13), Allison Lynn’s The Exiles (on sale 7/2/13), and James Franco’s Actors Anonymous (on sale 10/15/13).

            Day One is a digital-only series within Little A that is focused on short stories from debut writers and is available in North America and in the U.K. The first title, Kodi Scheer’s, haunting, fabulist “When a Camel Breaks Your Heart” was released on February 5, 2013. On March 19, Day One will release “Monster” by McSweeney’s contributor Bridget Clerkin, in which a woman struggles to keep her dysfunctional family together amid unsettling events–the family dog goes missing and an unidentified, mysterious animal corpse washes up on the beach.”

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          • Ricky Gervais brings his British Office character back to life on YouTube

            Fans of The Office have been preparing for withdrawal: The British version ended ten years ago, after two seasons, and the American version is now in its final season. On Friday, though, Ricky Gervais launched his new YouTube channel, which will feature new clips by “David Brent,” his British Office character, as well as non-Office-related content. 

            “Working with YouTube is a fantastic opportunity for new content to be made available without the limitations of schedules and international restrictions,” Gervais said in a statement (via Deadline Hollywood). “Viewing habits are changing. And anyone who doesn’t realize that will be left behind.”

            Gervais’s new channel is part of a multi-million-dollar push by YouTube to offer more original content on its platform. Gervais is the probably the biggest star so far to launch his own channel; British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver signed up in January.


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            • Samsung partners with Blurb to let users order physical photo albums from the Galaxy S 4

              Samsung is partnering with self-publishing company Blurb to let users order physical photo albums directly from their Galaxy S 4 phones.

              The Story Album app comes pre-installed on the Galaxy S 4, Samsung’s new smartphone that was unveiled Thursday in New York. The app auto-generates a layout from a user’s smartphone photos. The user can then add captions and dates, preview the album and order it directly from his or her phone.

              “As our lives become increasingly digital, people are genuinely appreciating the value of physical artifacts,” Blurb CEO Eileen Gittins said in a statement. “By combining the remarkable image quality that the Galaxy S 4 offers with the easy production of books and magazines that Blurb brings, everyone gets the best of digital and analog.”

              Blurb already lets users create physical photo albums from Instagram and Facebook photos.

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            • NowThis News, the video app from former HuffPo execs, launches on Android

              NowThis News, the video news app launched last year on iOS by former Huffington Post executives Ken Lerer and Eric Hippeau, launched on Android Thursday afternoon.

              As we reported last fall, NowThis provides “a combination of original and third-party news videos” aimed at mobile users. There are about 1,500 videos available so far, and the company plans to add more.

              NowThis is also launching an updated version of its iPad app soon. Among other things, the app will allow users to save up to 100 videos to their iPads for offline viewing.

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              • CBS launches an iOS app to stream full episodes of some shows

                CBS on Thursday launched an iOS app that offers full episodes of primetime shows a week after they air. Daytime and late-night shows are available to watch within 24 hours of airing. Android and Windows 8 apps are on the way.

                The app lets people “watch CBS shows on the best screen available for them,” CBS Interactive president Jim Lanzone said in a statement, “with a host of extra features that give them a richer viewing experience whenever and wherever they tune in.” Those extra features, which will be integrated “by the start of the Fall TV season,” will include “integrated social feeds; live events that allow fans to engage directly with talent; and second-screen experiences synched to the broadcast with additional content for select shows.”

                Shows available through the app include NCIS, The Good Wife, Survivor, CSI and How I Met Your Mother, among others. But full episodes of some well-known shows, like The Big Bang Theory and The Mentalist, are missing from the app even though they’re available through CBS’s website. And the app does not provide a way to catch up on past seasons, or even all of a current season: only select episodes are available.

                Other networks are also experimenting with offering streaming through their apps. NBC allows streaming of some shows through its iOS app, for example, while Fox only lets users stream full episodes through its “Fox Now” app if they authenticate their subscription to a TV provider.

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              • Google Reader, please don’t go — I need you to do my job

                When I learned Wednesday night that Google Reader is shutting down, I literally broke into a sweat. Like many journalists, I’ve come to rely on the 242 RSS subscriptions I manage through Google Reader. It’s the first thing I check every morning — second only to making a cup of coffee — and, along with Twitter and email, one of the top three resources I use to do my job. And honestly, if I had to get rid of one of those, it would be the email.

                Instead, Google’s making the choice for me: As of July 1, Google Reader will be no more. “While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined,” the company wrote on its blog. I’d bet that journalists are among the most loyal followers of all, and this morning we are a very unhappy bunch. “Google Reader” is the number-one trending topic on Twitter right now.

                The loss of Google Reader could change the way a lot of web journalists, like me, do our jobs. Here are some of the reasons we love the service — and why there’s an opportunity for other companies to step up and serve us (assuming we’re not somehow able to convince Google to keep Reader alive…we’ll even pay for it!).

                Twitter isn’t a substitute for RSS…

                The best thing about Google Reader, from my point of view, is that it allows me to scan a lot of information quickly, with the assurance that I’m not missing anything. That’s why, for me, it fills a completely different role than the (equally useful) Twitter does. Twitter provides a snapshot of a moment in time, and you’re likely to miss tweets as they whiz by; Google Reader stores everything. The search on Google Reader is also vastly better than the search on Twitter, and it goes back indefinitely.

                …and neither is Flipboard

                Services like Flipboard are great if you want to see the most popular stories on a given topic. But as someone who really geeks out digital book publishing, I don’t just want to see the stories that an aggregator recommends for me because they’ve reached a critical mass. I want to keep up with the little blogs, the niche blogs that rarely surface but that do occasionally pick up on some story or emerging trend that I would simply have never learned about otherwise. Google Reader helps me keep track of what’s going on at the roots of my beat. I choose the sources I’ll follow there, and I know that I won’t miss out on one of their stories. I trust Flipboard (kind of) to link me to some big political or tech story, but I don’t trust it to “discover” the nitty-gritty stuff for me, and for good reason: It doesn’t.

                In addition, Flipboard is a lean-back kind of service. I use it when I want to curl up and read. In the mornings when I’m looking for stories, I don’t want to tap through a pretty magazine-like interface on my iPad. I just want to scan headlines and text fast, and I want to do it on my laptop.

                So what’s next?

                Now that the panic’s subsiding a little bit, it looks as if viable alternatives to Google Reader are going to emerge. In fact, Instapaper’s Marco Arment actually thinks the closure of Reader could be a good thing for people who rely on RSS: “We’ll be forced to fill the hole that Reader will leave behind…We’re finally likely to see substantial innovation and competition in RSS desktop apps and sync platforms for the first time in almost a decade.”

                Alternatives are sure to pop up in coming days. Search Engine Marketing Land has a big list here. Digg is apparently working on a Reader-like service. Feedly and Reeder, two apps that integrate with Google Reader, have already promised that they won’t die off just because the service does. “A lot of Google Reader users use their reader as a research/curation tool and need to be able to crunch through a lot of articles very fast,” Feedly wrote on its blog Thursday morning — and explained how customers can use Feedly to do just that. Reeder also tweeted that it’s staying in business, though it hasn’t explained how yet.

                “I think that there is still a lot of value a service like Reader could provide — particularly in a world with increasing information overload coming us from many different sources,” Brian Shih, a former Google Reader product manager, writes on Quora. “But Reader at Google was pigeonholed as an RSS-reader explicitly, and didn’t have a chance to grow beyond that to explore that space.” Similarly, Chris Wetherell, an early creator of Google Reader, told Om that the service missed early monetization opportunities that other companies still might be able to tap into.

                The good news for journalists and others who rely on Google Reader is that, while Google clearly doesn’t see a business opportunity in the legions of Reader fans, other companies do. And over the next couple of months, they’re going to be competing for our business.

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              • Judge rules Apple CEO Tim Cook must testify in ebook antitrust case

                Apple CEO Tim Cook will have to testify in the the Department of Justice’s ebook antitrust case, federal judge Denise Cote ruled Wednesday, according to a report in Reuters.

                Apple hadn’t wanted Cook to testify, writing in a letter to the court on Monday (PDF) that the government’s original complaint didn’t mention him (it only refers to former CEO Steve Jobs) and that Cook — who was previously the company’s chief operating officer — doesn’t possess any “unique knowledge about Apple’s decision to enter the ebooks market and recalls no relevant ‘private conversations’ with Mr. Jobs.”

                However, according to Reuters, Judge Cote said in a teleconference Wednesday that because of Jobs’ death, “I think the government is entitled to take testimony from high-level executives within Apple about topics relevant to the government case.” Court documents supporting her decision have not yet been posted to PACER.

                The DOJ sued Apple and five book publishers last April for allegedly conspiring to set ebook prices. All five publishers in the case have settled.

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              • Amazon slashes price of 4G Kindle Fire HD by $100, expands tablet to Europe & Japan

                Amazon announced Wednesday that it’s dropping the price of the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD in the United States, and is also rolling out the tablet in Europe and Japan.

                The biggest price cut is for the 4G LTE Kindle Fire HD. The 32 GB version, which had been $499, gets a price drop to $399. The Wi-Fi-only version of the same tablet gets a price cut of $30 — to $269 for the 16 GB version and $299 for the 32 GB version.

                Amazon is also launching the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD, with Wi-Fi only, in the U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Japan. It will start at £229.00 (USD $341) in the U.K., €269 (USD $348) in Europe and ¥24,800 (USD $258) in Japan. (Amazon told me that the varying prices are due to different operating costs in the countries.)

                The 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD, which launched last September, is Amazon’s answer to the iPad. Amazon also launched a 7-inch Wi-Fi Kindle Fire HD, which starts at $199, last fall; that tablet, which is already available in Europe and Japan, is not getting a price cut.

                Dave Limp, VP of Kindle, claimed in a statement that “As we expand Kindle Fire HD 8.9” to Europe and Japan, we’ve been able to increase our production volumes and decrease our costs. Across our business at Amazon, whenever we are able to create cost efficiencies like this, we want to pass the savings along to our customers.” But the move may also be intended to help the Kindle Fire compete with the iPad Mini, which has a 7.9-inch screen and starts at $329.

                A previous version of this story stated that the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD would cost ¥15,800 (USD $164) in Japan. That is the price of the 7-inch Kindle Fire HD in the country.

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              • Cosmo, Harlequin will kick off ebook line with two books by Sylvia Day

                Cosmopolitan magazine is teaming up with romance publisher Harlequin on a line of ebooks called Cosmo Red Hot Reads. While the partnership was first made public in December, the companies announced Tuesday that the first two books in the series will be written by the bestselling author Sylvia Day. Day originally self-published her bestselling Bared to You before signing a deal with Penguin’s Berkley last year.

                Day signed a seven-figure deal with Harlequin; the first ebook, Afterburn, will be released on August 15, and the second, Aftershock, on November 15. Each will be about 30,000 words long and will cost $3.99 as ebooks. They’ll also be released as a “two-in-one trade paperback” in November, according to the release. Overall, Cosmo and Harlequin plan to release two Red Hot Reads a month starting in August, and all the books will ”feature strong narratives centering on modern young women living the free-spirited and outgoing lifestyle espoused by the international magazine.”

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              • Vimeo on Demand launches to let creators charge for videos

                Online video site Vimeo is rolling out tools to let creators charge for their content, the company plans to announce Tuesday at SXSW.

                The move into paid video distribution is a “natural next step” for Vimeo, CEO Kerry Trainor told me, following the launch of a “tip jar” feature last September. The new feature is called “Vimeo on Demand” and is available to creators with Vimeo Pro memberships (which are aimed at professionals, cost $199 a year and offer options like more video storage and HD playback).

                Creators control price for their videos but have to charge at least $0.99. There’s a 90-10 revenue split after Paypal or credit card transaction fees, with creators taking 90 percent.

                Creators also control geographic distribution and whether their content is streaming-only or downloadable. They can put it up for sale on Vimeo.com, on their own website, or both. If they choose to enable downloading, the format is DRM-free MP4.

                YouTube is reportedly planning to start offering subscriptions as an additional monetization vehicle for creators. For now, Trainor said, Vimeo isn’t looking at any type of subscription offering: “The feature is targeted toward the creator, and there are no plans for a viewer package.”

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              • Politico hits 1,000 Pro subscriptions and plans to launch a magazine

                Over a thousand organizations are now using subscription site Politico Pro, the politics website announced Tuesday. Politico says the site reaches 7,000 professionals per month and has a renewal rate of 96 percent.

                Politico launched Politico Pro in February 2011; while it was originally aimed at individual subscribers, Pro quickly switched its focus to the group subscriptions that now make up the vast majority of its base. Pro offers some subscriber-only articles, early access to morning newsletters, customizable instant alerts and other perks. Pro started out covering energy, health care and technology and added more coverage areas — defense, financial services, tax and transportation — last year. Starting this month, Pro subscribers can also receive an afternoon policy newsletter called Pro Report.

                In an attempt to drive more Pro subscriptions, Politico is launching a free quarterly print magazine that will feature past Pro coverage. On March 22, it will be delivered to “every member of Congress, the White House and all federal agencies as well as to 160 newspaper boxes and 100 Washington-area Starbucks.”

                Politico is tight-lipped on what a subscription to Pro actually costs. Subscription fees vary based on the type of organization (government, nonprofit and so on) and how many employees it has, as well as the number of coverage areas an organization wants. Nieman Journalism Lab reported last year that an individual subscription starts at $3,295 a year, with group memberships starting at $8,000 for five people and one coverage area.

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              • LinkedIn reportedly buying news reading app Pulse for over $50M

                LinkedIn is buying the news reading app Pulse, AllThingsD reported Monday afternoon. The reported purchase price is between $50 million and $100 million. GigaOM’s Om Malik previously spoke with sources who said that Pulse and other buysers were talking about a purchase price at the high end of this range.

                “We don’t comment on rumors or speculation,” LinkedIn spokesman Hani Durzy told me. Pulse has not yet responded to a request for comment.

                The San Francisco-based Pulse, founded in 2010, has over 20 million users across its web, iOS and Android apps. The apps pull in news from different verticals and arrange it in a graphical interface. Users can also subscribe to RSS feeds, save content to read later, and share stories. Last summer, Pulse partnered with the Wall Street Journal to make the newspaper’s paid premium content available through its app.

                The reported acquisition comes at a time when LinkedIn is trying to beef up its content offerings. The career networking site already aggregates personalized news feeds for its users, and it rolled out a blogging platform last fall.

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              • Meet the 12-year-old who’s pitching his app at SXSW

                Ethan Duggan got the idea for his app one afternoon when he was playing video games after school. “My mom comes home and she has a bunch of dresses, like twenty,” he recalled. “She goes into her room, tries the dresses on, comes back to me, and says ‘How do I look?’ I say she looks great. Then I realized, I have a phone.” Thus LazyHusband — available now, at $0.99, for iOS and Android — was born.

                Ethan and I met in the press room of the Austin Convention Center. He was accompanied by his dad, Rick Duggan — a systems director at Zappos — and his mom, Marni Klein. With only a little bit of prompting from his parents, Ethan walked me through the app, which comes with a series of phrases like “No, you don’t look fat.” Users can record their own voices saying the phrases and can add new ones, then play them back in any awkward or boring dress-trying-on situation. LazyKid and LazyWife apps are coming soon. The LazyKid app will include phrases like “Yes, I’ve done my homework,” “I love you,” and, Ethan’s favorite, “one second.”

                Ethan’s also working on other apps. Soon he’ll release Bargument, which pulls up fake Wikipedia pages to prove “false facts” to people. (The idea is to use it to trick drunk people in a bar.) “My example is that there are 30,000 seagulls in Africa,” he said.

                Ethan spent four months learning to code through Codecademy, then began programming his app. He also got a bunch of help from the Las Vegas tech community. “Geoff Saunders [the cofounder of user authentication app LaunchKey] got me a two-hour crash course in CSS,” Ethan said. “From that, I learned the basics.” George Moncrief, the tech director at Raster Media, helped him learn PhoneGap. “Pretty much a lot of people, like ten people, have helped me from VegasTech,” Ethan said.

                I asked Ethan what he thought of SXSW (which he got to miss a couple of days of school to attend). He described his experience as “a blessing and a curse at the same time. The good thing is, I get promoted, I get to talk to a lot of cool people, I get to get a lot of connection and stuff. The curse is that I have to do a lo-o-t of walking.”

                His tip for other first-time SXSW attendees: “Bring your back backpack one-third full. You will leave with it completely packed.”

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