Goldberg, who will start at the travel publisher in March and work out of its Melbourne, Australia, office, arrives from Dow Jones where he was senior v-p of digital strategy and operations overseeing a number of the brand's Web sites including WSJ.com and Barrons.com. Goldberg's task at Lonely Planet, as per a statement from parent company BBC, is to be the lead on its "multiplatform growth strategy."

Speaking to the hire, Marcus Arthur, BBC Worldwide's MD of Global Brands, said: "I've no doubt that Matt's expertise will not only help maintain Lonely Planet's core business in printed travel guides, but will also seek to optimize opportunities in alternative media markets as the business enters the next phase of its digital development." Before Dow Jones, Goldberg was at Bertelsmann where on, among other things, he directed its cross platform media efforts. BBC acquired Lonely Planet in late 2007.

One of publishing's brightest beacons in 2008 was The Story of Edgar Sawtelle (No. 19 this week), whose fortunes were boosted when Oprah Winfrey picked the debut novel for her book club. Author David Wroblewski has been signed by Ecco to write the second book in what will be a trilogy about the Sawtelle clan and its dogs. Book 2 will center on John Sawtelle, the family patriarch.

Wroblewski, 49, isn't setting any publication dates. (It took him more than a decade to write Edgar Sawtelle.) He's calling the series "a triptych. I think of these stories as somewhat loosely coupled but intersecting." He is also editing a 2010 non-fiction anthology highlighting new research into the relationship between dogs and people. Any canine advice for the Obama family? "I think a mutt is a great choice."

1. The popularity of e-books will increase, with titles formatted for Amazon's Kindle leading the way. Content for the Sony Reader will sell faster than ever, but by this time next year, Kindle-compatible books will be outselling them by more than 2 to 1. And Palm, which has historically been the bestselling format, will have had its best year-on-year increase as well. Powells.com, which offers the largest selection of titles in formats that are not in closed distribution (a total of 150,000 in Adobe, Microsoft and Palm so far) will also have a record year for e-book sales. By year end, nearly every straight-text title published with commercial intent will be available for Kindle; the trick for the other formats will be to make sure they're included, too. And Kindle pricing will drive the market. But despite the fast growth, e-books will still make up a tiny share of the market—no more than 2% of sales for most titles—and will contribute only a minimal amount to publishers' bottom lines.

2. Sales of books in electronic form to public libraries will continue to grow: Ingram's MyiLibrary, Follett, NetLibrary and Overdrive are already deep into this business. This opportunity will present a challenge as publishers discover that some older contracts don’t give them the right to make that kind of sale.

The address, to students passing out from of Kenyon College in Ohio, was given in May 2005, three years before the author hanged himself at his home this September, aged 46. It saw Wallace taking on the challenges of daily life, attempting to answer what the real-life value of education is, and looking at how we think about the world. It will be published as a small hardback, This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered On a Significant Occasion, About Living a Compassionate Life, running to some 150 pages, by Little, Brown US next April.

The publisher described the speech as a "pointedly observant examination of daily life", which it said was written with Wallace's "one-of-a-kind blend of casual humour, exacting intellect, and practical philosophy [which] offers advice that renews us with every reading". "[It] was Wallace's only philosophical public address," added Marlena Bittner, associate director of publicity at Little, Brown, and Wallace's former publicist.

The title, This is Water, is taken from the speech, in which Wallace told the anecdote of two young fish who meet an older fish, who asks them "how's the water?" They swim on, and eventually one of them asks the other, "what the hell is water?"

"If you're worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise old fish explaining what water is, please don't be. I am not the wise old fish. The immediate point of the fish story is that the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about," Wallace told the graduates. "The capital-T Truth is about life before death. It is about making it to 30, or maybe 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head. It is about simple awareness -- awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves, over and over: 'This is water, this is water.'"

Since I spoke to you a month ago about the economic crisis and its impact on our company, I can’t say much has changed. We are now clearly in a recession and there is still no clarity on how long or deep it will be. What is clear is that retail book sales are down, advertising revenues are down, and even countercyclical businesses like education are struggling in many cases. We are not immune to these forces, and our business continues to be soft. So the time has come to take action for next year.

Effective January 1st for 2009 we will freeze salaries for everyone making more than $50,000. For those making under $50,000 there will be a pool for modest increases. All bonus plans will stay in effect, but all are sensitive to individual company profitability and individual performance. Thus the impact on individual bonus plans will vary.

Yesterday, the band was forced to issue a categorical denial of allegations that they copied the title track to their new record, Viva La Vida Or Death and All His Friends from a little-known US group, Creaky Boards.

In a video posted on the video-sharing website YouTube, Andrew Hoepfner, Creaky Boards' singer and songwriter, claimed that the melody of Coldplay's song, Viva La Vida, is pinched from a track he wrote last year called, ironically, The Songs I Didn't Write.

He blamed Chris Martin for the alleged artistic theft, saying that Coldplay's frontman attended a Creaky Boards concert in New York last year.

"This is the most challenging economic environment that any of us has ever experienced," Makinson said, and he acknowledged the grim situations occurring at many of Penguin's competitors, including layoffs, and freezes on hiring, pensions and new book acquisitions. He was hopeful that holding off on pay increases for the next year would help Penguin avoid those drastic measures. However, Makinson said, "I cannot of course guarantee that there will be no job losses in Penguin in 2009. In this financial climate that would be plain foolhardy." Makinson did not propose a recruitment freeze but said Penguin will not be hiring "unless it is absolutely essential." The restriction on pay raises will apply to every Pearson operating company.

There were some positive remarks as well. "We are a strong and successful company, and right now we're the envy of the industry," he said. "I continue to believe that we'll have every reason to take pride in our achievements when we announce our 2008 results next March." Makinson advised employees to "expect, and plan for, the unexpected in 2009 and possibly beyond."

The official launch of the book is at the National Library of Scotland tomorrow, where a group of Edinburgh school children will attend a tea party hosted by Rowling. But bookshops across the country are opening at midnight to cater for fans desperate to get their hands on a copy of Beedle the Bard. The 128-page book is already known to Potter enthusiasts as the volume which Hogwart's headmaster Albus Dumbledore left to Hermione Granger in the final Potter novel.

"We expect it to crash into the number one slot tomorrow and it will be very difficult to dislodge it this side of Christmas," said Waterstone's spokesman Jon Howells. "It would take magic of Voldemort proportions to kick it off the number one slot."

Waterstone's is opening its flagship London Piccadilly branch from 10pm this evening, with 400 fans flying in from Australia, New Zealand, America and Europe to attend the event. The store is to feature a live Mugglenet podcast, magical entertainment and Harry Potter characters for fans to meet. Waterstone's branches across the UK will also open early tomorrow morning for children to buy the book before school.

*****

The Tales of Beedle the Bard contains five stories which helped Harry Potter to destroy Voldemort. The Tale of the Three Brothers is the only story to have been recounted previously, in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, with the remaining four - The Fountain of Fair Fortune, The Warlock's Hairy Heart, The Wizard and the Hopping Pot and Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump -- unseen until now.

Company CEO George Jones said that after completing a thorough review of its options, the company determined it was best "to remain as we are," adding that he was "quite pleased" that the review is over and that Borders will remain an independent, publicly-traded company. The company still has the option to sell its Paperchase division to Pershing Square Capital, Borders's largest shareholder, for $65 million. That option expires Jan. 15. The company said it is talking to Pershing about different financing arrangements.

Similar to its competitors, Borders blamed a lack of customer traffic for the decline in sales, noting that the drop was most significant in September and October. Jones said the higher decline in comp stores compared to its competitors was due in part to its aggressive inventory reduction program which he acknowledged cost some sales. Jones said the decision to prune slow moving titles from Borders's store shelves was the right one, although he acknowledged the program "was not perfect." The company is starting to "fine tune" its inventory program and may return some books to stores, Jones said. According to Jones Borders is "well stocked" for the holidays. "It's a tough retail environment, but we feel we'll get our share of sales," Jones said.

The animated video adaptation of the horror master's short story "N." has been viewed more than a one million times on the Internet and on mobile phones since its release in July, according to publisher Simon & Schuster.

King has well demonstrated his digital appeal before. His e-novella "Riding the Bullet" was a sensation in the early years of the Internet.

Still, the fact that the trilogy's author is dead complicated things. Knopf publicity director Paul Bogaards began the marketing effort by romancing booksellers months before publication with a flood of advance reading copies.

"The retail channel was key," says Bogaards. "In the absence of bookseller enthusiasm you might, as a publisher, have a problem."

The goal, Bogaards says, was to build momentum in the form of advance book sales. Knopf also took out a late summer ad in The New York Times Book Review offering a free copy of the thriller to anyone who wrote asking for one.

Bloggers also got into the act: The books had already appeared on five European best-seller lists by the time Knopf secured the American rights, and many U.S.-based bloggers who had read raves about Larsson from their European counterparts had finagled copies of the books from overseas. They began touting the book early this year.

Mr. Boyden's triumph prompted the now-obligatory standing ovation by the invitation-only black-tie crowd of 500. Earlier in the evening, they'd dined on slow-roasted beef tenderloin and mustard seed spatzle, with bitter-chocolate mousse for dessert. The founder of the feast was Toronto businessman Jack Rabinovitch, who started the prize in 1994 to honour his late wife, journalist Doris Giller, then in 2005 brought Scotiabank aboard as corporate sponsor.

Among Mr. Rabinovitch's guests last night were former Ontario premiers William Davis and David Peterson, broadcaster Moses Znaimer, former Toronto mayor David Crombie, dancer Rex Harrington, lawyer Clayton Ruby, Indigo Books and Music head Heather Reisman, super-agent Michael Levine and, of course, the three Giller jurors. They read 95 books submitted by more than 35 publishers and released between Oct. 12, 2007, and Sept. 30 this year. A long list of 15 titles was announced in early September.