HarpercollinsPublishers

Sarah Palin's publisher, HarperCollins, says it has settled its lawsuit with Gawker, which posted leaked images of pages from Palin's new book, "America by Heart." Neither company disclosed details of the settlement, but HarperCollins proclaimed itself "gratified."

Macmillan, one of publishing's Big Six, has become the first company to fight Amazon's pricing of e-books. Amazon lost this battle, but it's going to be a long and costly war, with other publishers and with Apple, which unveiled its iPad last week.

Big publishers are in talks with Apple on how to make e-books available for the forthcoming Tablet. They may be pushing towards a new pricing model, one which Amazon has a vested interest in combating with an attractive new royalty rate for would-be e-authors.

When should an e-book be published? Before the physical copy gets published, or months later, or at the same time? Publishers must increasingly weigh tradition against the tide of consumers who want to read their e-books when they want them, and on any device they choose.