Harpercollins

A clear and energetic optimism on the state of the industry was in the air this week at the Digital Book World Conference in New York. In 2010, e-book sales rose by around 400% and pulled in almost $1 billion in sales. Madeline McIntosh, Random House's president of sales, operations and digital, said her company is working on the belief that by 2015, half the books readers buy will be e-books. "I'd like to think we are entering a golden age of publishing," said Brian Napack, president of Macmillan, the publishing house behind Jonathan Franzen's "Freedom.

Electronic-book deals between Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc. and major book publishers may be anti-competitive, Connecticut Atty. Gen. Richard Blumenthal said Monday. Blumenthal's office said he is investigating whether the terms of these agreements, in which Apple and Amazon "will receive the best prices for e-books over any competitors," lead to less competition when it comes to book pricing. "These agreements appear to deter certain publishers from offering discounts to Amazon and Apple's competitors — because they must offer the same to Amazon and Apple," Blumenthal's office said in a statement.

Fifty-nine in '84 Old Hoss Radbourn, Barehanded Baseball, and the Greatest Season a Pitcher Ever Had Edward Achorn Smithsonian/HarperCollins: 366 pp., $25.99

Going Rogue An American Life Sarah Palin HarperCollins: 413 pages; $28.99

A particularly shrewd political analyst once remarked that Ronald Reagan's great strength as a candidate was that he was "a sincere phony." In the world of electoral realpolitik, that's a compliment. What the analyst meant was that Reagan had the ability to convince himself that he actually held expedient views he'd never previously entertained and that belief, in turn, allowed him to speak of them with utter conviction. Thus, the governor who'd signed the nation's most permissive abortion-rights statute became the resolutely pro-life president.

You may not be able to judge a book by its cover, but you often can tell something from its title -- and Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue: An American Story," due out on Tuesday, front-loads expectations in ways most political books do not. With a first printing of 1.5 million copies, HarperCollins hopes that marketing the book to the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate's conservative political base will help counter what has been a slow book-buying market....

Sarah Palin's book tour is a gift for her base. No stops are planned in Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, Philadelphia and other major cities and book-buying communities that are standard for authors on the road, but where the voters tend to be Democrats. Beyond a Nov. 16 TV interview with Oprah Winfrey, nothing is scheduled for Chicago. New York will feature media appearances only. The itinerary for Palin, whose "Going Rogue" comes out Nov. 17, includes Noblesville, Ind.; Washington, Pa.; and Rochester, N.Y. "She wants to be unconventional.

Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin reported that she had received at least $1.25 million for her memoir, "Going Rogue." A financial disclosure statement discusses Palin's finances from Jan. 1 to July 26, when she resigned as governor. Palin says she received the money from publisher HarperCollins.