Penguin Daily Digital Update 20th July

Rebuck and Scardino move up the MediaGuardian ranks. The Bookseller reports that Marjorie Scardino and Gail Rebuck - Random House CEO - have both risen up the ranks. Marjorie Scardino has jumped from 49 to 25. The Guardian said of Marjorie: "one of only a handful of female chief executives in charge of a leading UK business, she has overseen a transformation in the fortunes of Pearson":
http://www.thebookseller.com/news/123610-page.html

Despite this, this year's MediaGuardian 100 list contains just 18 women - fewer than in the past 2 years. This article looks at whether the list reflects the industry:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/organgrinder/2010/jul/16/mediaguardian-100-white-blokes

Wired reports that the US lawsuit against document-sharing website Scribd, which claimed its copyright filtering technology is itself a form of copyright infringement, has been abandoned. The suit argued that the copying and insertion of a copyrighted work into a filtering system without compensating the copyright holder, or obtaining their consent, was a violation of the Copyright Act:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/copyrightfiltering-scribd/

Publisher's Weekly reports that Kindle Books are now outselling hardcover books on Amazon. According to statistics, in the past three months, for every 100 hardcover books sold, Amazon.com has sold 143 Kindle books. eBook sales have also tripled in the first half of 2010 compared to 2009: http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/content-and-e-books/article/43899-amazon-s-e-book-sales-tripled-in-first-half-of-2010-.html

The digital revolution in children's publishing: Children's book publishers are pretty confident in the long-term survival of printed books for children - picture books have used artwork as a core part of their storytelling as long as the art form has existed, and the art form is now going interactive. Now children can "literally participate" in a book and publishers have a lot of decisions to make - which devices to embrace, how to handle digital rights (and who has them), and how they can make money with e-products:
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-industry-news/article/43879-the-digital-revolution-in-children-s-publishing.html

And Penguin USA has teamed up with US cable network Starz to create an enhanced eBook of Ken Follett's novel The Pillars of the Earth, which pulls content from the upcoming TV miniseries based on the book. The eBook includes 34 short videos, artwork and original music from the series (and there is an iPad version too):
http://www.thebookseller.com/news/123656-penguin-teams-up-with-cable-network-to-provide-amplified-follett-e-book.html.rss