To start you off for the weekend ahead, here are some literary links for your perusal:

• What does Fox News’s “fair and balanced” Bill O’Reilly know about the assassination of Honest Abe Lincoln? Apparently he has been studying up, and will co-write a book on the former president’s murder
• “Mixing” or plagiarism? Debut author, 17, comes under fire for sampling work from other writers
• MobyLives quotes Michael Cader of Publisher’s Marketplace, who defends higher e-book prices: “The implicit, false promise of cheap e-books was made by the people who profit, at very nice margins, from selling the devices, not from publishers.”
• Happy Olympics Day! Get to know how Miga, Quatchi, and Sumi became the Olympic mascots with this collectible storybook
• And in other sports-related book news, it turns out some millionaire NBA athletes are book nerds after all

With the growing onslaught of e-readers and e-books, will readers see a shift in the average length of new books? Might we see longer books, because publishers are no longer constrained by the costs and sheer weight of a War and Peace-sized tome? Or will there be a deluge of novellas by authors freed from the pressure of writing a book of a certain length?

On Crooked Timber, Henry Farrell speculates about how the e-book revolution might at least save non-fiction readers from convoluted non-fiction books that are much longer than necessary:

The length of the average book reflects the economics of the print trade and educated guesses as to what book-buyers will actually pay for, much more than it does the actual intellectual content of the book itself… Books which are, for example, extended versions of articles written for The Atlantic, The Public Interest or what have you are especially likely to be over-long for their topic – I don’t remember ever reading one of these books and feeling that I got substantial insights which were unavailable in the original article.

And while Farrell hopes the future will bring a world where “people won’t feel obliged to pad out what are really essays to book length,” one commenter points out that the opposite may also be beneficial: long books that can continuously hold the reader’s attention (she gives the example of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall) could be read right through without the apprehension of starting a book too heavy to carry with you on the subway:

I hadn’t seen the physical version before I read [Wolf Hall] on the Kindle, and it was so absorbing that I had no consciousness of how long it was — the Kindle tells you that you are 48% through, but if you’ve achieved flow in the reading, and you don’t tend to keep a running tally of the hours you’ve spent reading, that doesn’t give you a concrete idea, unlike the position of your bookmark in a physical book.

Some rogueish book-related links:

• Sarah Palin’s political action committee buys thousands of copies of Going Rogue
• An e-book pirate confesses
• Rip Torn has always been crazy. After all, he once beat the crap out of Norman Mailer
• Philip K. Dick? He was nuts, too
• Tiger Woods: Platonic, though definitely not platonic
• North Americans don’t read enough contemporary European lit? Who cares!
• “Dangerous” kids’ book an unlikely hit – because apparently kids need books to tell them to act like idiots
• The continuing influence of music writer Greil “What is this shit?” Marcus

When Shortcovers announced earlier today that it has re-branded itself as Kobo, it was clear some big changes were afoot at the company, which was founded just 10 months ago by Indigo Books & Music.

This afternoon, Indigo announced that it is transferring all of Kobo’s assets into a separate company, with Indigo as the main shareholder. According to a press release, Kobo has raised $16 million from a group of investors that also includes the U.S.-based Borders Group, Instant Fame (a subsidiary of Cheung Kong Holdings), and REDgroup Retail, which operates Australia’s Angus & Robertson and Borders chains.

The new partnerships will give Kobo distribution partners across the U.S., Canada, the U.K., the E.U., Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and other territories. As part of the announcement, Borders U.S. will also launch a Kobo-powered store through its website and begin selling Kobo-branded mobile apps.

“We have assembled a strong syndicate of investors and partners across key categories – retail and mobile distribution,” said Kobo CEO Mike Serbinis in a press release. “We have a unique opportunity to power the e-reading revolution by reaching consumers everywhere they shop today, on any device they choose.”

The re-branding of Shortcovers comes amid rumours that the company is preparing to launch its own e-reader. Last month, Shortcovers filed a trademark with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office for a wireless e-reader also called Kobo. According to the press release, Kobo plans to “extend its platform by launching additional smartphone support, desktop and tablet apps, and its own dedicated e-reader devices.”

Kobo’s partnership with Borders gives the struggling U.S. chain a foothold in the burgeoning e-book market. Borders’ main U.S. competitor, Barnes & Noble, recently released its own dedicated e-reading device, known as the Nook.

“Our vision for a digital strategy that’s right for Borders is taking shape today through our investment in Kobo,” says Borders CEO Ron Marshall. “Borders shares Kobo’s vision to provide any e-book on any device, and we look forward to working closely with Kobo on content and distribution.”

Says Indigo CEO Heather Reisman,“We are very excited about the vision of Kobo and the opportunity to play a leading role in the emerging e-reading revolution. We look forward to partnering on the introduction of new services and reading devices and to providing our customers with the richest e-reading experiences.”

It’s official: Shortcovers, the Indigo-owned e-book service launched less than a year ago, has a new name. At midnight last night, the company was rechristened Kobo (an anagram of “book”), and along with a redesigned website and mobile app, introduced several new features. However, no mention was made of a branded e-reading device, despite recent speculation.

What does the name change mean? Presumably, if the Shortcovers brand is starting from scratch all over again, we can expect more than simply a new “look and feel.” But the initial changes, outlined in a blog post by Kobo CEO Mike Serbinis, seem fairly minor. They include the ability to browse by category (fiction, romance, sci-fi & fantasy, etc.), a regularly updated bestsellers list, and recommended reading lists.

Serbinis says to also expect new apps, new “supported devices,” and expanded international offerings, including the ability for consumers around the world to make purchases in their local currency.

To experience the new Shortcovers, go to kobobooks.com.

As the Kindle, the Nook, and the Sony Reader gain traction with consumers, one publisher is rushing to ensure that it retains the electronic rights to all of its backlist titles, even if the contracts for those titles were written before e-readers existed.

In a front-page article in yesterday’s New York Times, Motoko Rich reported that Random House sent a letter to literary agents last Friday claiming “that the company’s older agreements gave it ‘the exclusive right to publish in electronic book publishing formats.’” The Bookseller points out that the letter, signed by Random House chief executive Markus Dohle, is already provoking controversy:

Nat Sobel, a literary agent whose clients include James Ellroy and Richard Russo, both of whom are published by Random House’s Alfred Knopf imprint, disagreed with Dohle’s assertions. “I don’t accept Random House’s position, and I don’t think anybody else will either,” Sobel said. “You are entitled to the rights stated in your contract. And contracts 20 years ago didn’t cover electronic rights. And the courts have already agreed with this position.”

According to Rich, the estate of William Styron entered into an agreement this fall with a company called Open Road Integrated Media to produce electronic versions of Styron’s books, which include the classic novels Sophie’s Choice and The Confessions of Nat Turner. But if Dohle gets his way, those proposed Open Road titles will be rendered illegitimate:

In his letter on Friday, Mr. Dohle said that authors were precluded “from granting publishing rights to third parties.” Stuart Applebaum, a spokesman for Random House, said the company expected to “continue to publish the Styron books we own in all formats, including e-books.”

[Jeffrey] Sharp, president of Open Road, said in an e-mailed statement: “We are confident in our agreements and only make deals with parties who represent to us that they own the rights.”

In response to the decision of three big U.S. publishers – Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, and Hachette Book Group – to counter the downward pressure on e-book prices by delaying their publication, Amazon has chosen the combative response of lowering prices even further.

According to The New York Times (via MobyLives), the company is now selling e-book pre-orders of Stephen King’s Under the Dome and Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue at the rock-bottom price of $7.99 U.S. (Both titles are currently available in hardcover and will be released as e-books later this month.) From the Times:

As of Thursday Amazon appeared to be offering low prices on Kindle editions of several popular titles, including The Help, by Kathryn Stockett, for $7.60, The Girl Who Played With Fire, the second in the thriller series by Swedish author Stieg Larsson, offered at $7.99, and both Twilight and New Moon, the first two volumes in the vampire series by Stephenie Meyer, were available for $4.25.

Remember that rumour from this past summer that Indigo was planning to unveil a dedicated e-reading device? Well, some intrigue at the Canadian Intellectual Property Office is reviving such speculation.

Yesterday, blogger Mark Bertils noted that the Shortcovers app had gone AWOL in the Apple store. And a little digging from the Association of Canadian Publisher’s Nic Boshart has unearthed that Indigo-owned Shortcovers has taken out a trademark on the name Kobo, described as a portable e-reading device “for receiving, downloading, displaying, providing access to and reading text, images and sound and other digital content through wireless Internet access.”

Some sundry links from across the Web:

• Resourceful idea of the week: British village transforms traditional red phone booth into local library
• Coming soon to a theatre near you: the book trailer for Quirk Classics’ Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters
• Nobel Prize-winning Herta Müller “has a psychosis,” says Romanian spy
• Neil Gaiman discusses audiobooks with David Sedaris and Martin Jarvis on NPR. Similarly, Douglas Hunter praises the e-book at The Globe and Mail and Mark Medley reviews the Kindle at the National Post
• Nabokov’s posthumously published The Original of Laura is not a novel, says Nathaniel Rich
• And the Bad Sex in Fiction Award goes to … Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones

“Hardcover sales of my last book were down 20 percent, while e-book sales were up 300 percent.” That’s what thriller writer John Lescroart told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette recently, although he also referred to himself as “a hold-a-book-in-your-hands kind of guy.” The Post-Gazette article also quotes Cinthia Portugal, a spokesperson for Amazon.ca, as saying that the company now sells 48 Kindle books for every 100 physical books, which is up from 35 for every 100 in May. Moreover, a representative of Forrester, a business consulting firm, predicted sales of e-readers would reach three million this year, compared to one million last year.

Though certain market segments have predictably rushed to embrace the new technology, others are just as predictably suspicious of it. Guess which of the following, also quoted by the Post-Gazette, is a retired computer trainer and which is a retired librarian:

I bought a Kindle e-reader last year and really love it…. I can adjust the text size, [the screen] causes no eye strain. It’s lightweight and very portable. And it’s almost too easy to buy a new book. I will never go back to paper books.

vs.

I cannot bear the thought of technology to read a book…. I love bookstores and libraries too much. Ingesting the words off the pages and enjoying even the smell of books are wonderful sensations. Truly, books rule!

The group that remains resistant to electronic books may have one legitimate area of concern: according to a recent article in The Times, U.S. publishers estimate they lost $600 million to digital piracy last year. The article states that even before Dan Brown’s new novel, The Lost Symbol, was published, there were pirated versions available for download. Within days of its official publication, the novel had been illegally downloaded more than 100,000 times. The Times article continues:

George Walkley, digital strategy director for Hachette Livre U.K., the biggest publisher in Britain, said that while the e-book business was booming, with a 300 per cent increase in titles available in the last year, so was piracy.

Some books, such as the Harry Potter series, were being pirated because they were not available in digital format and there was “frustrated demand,” he said. But all popular authors faced the prospect of illegal copies of their works being circulated on the internet.

Digital evangelists would likely say this is just the cost of doing business online, but publishers can be forgiven for worrying, particularly given the experiences of the music and movie industries. But if e-books aren’t going away, neither are the digital pirates. Russell Davis, president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America was quoted in The New York Times last May as saying, “It’s a game of Whac-a-Mole…. You knock one down and five more spring up.”