Canadian retailing giant Indigo is launching Shortcovers, their effort to stake out a dominant place in the “app-world” reading market, at the Consumer Electronics show. Launching in the US at the end of this month and in Canada shortly thereafter, the start-up is leveraging parent company Indigo’s relationships with publishers. (In a video interview with USA Today shown on the Shortcovers site, company cto Michael Serbinis has Marley & Me and The Snowball currently on his iPhone.) The system promises Kindlesque ease and variety of free sample chapters from books, along with other reading material including articles, news stories, speeches, […]
Archives for January 2009
The February 2009 Indie Next List
Cutting for Stone: A Novel by Abraham VergheseLittle Bee: A Novel by Chris CleaveThe Help: A Novel by Kathryn StockettThe School of Essential Ingredients: A Novel by Erica BauermeisterDog on It: A Chet and Bernie Mystery by Spencer QuinnThe Leisure Seeker: A Novel by Michael ZadoorianHotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet: A Novel by Jamie FordAddition: A Novel by Toni JordanIrreplaceable: A Novel by Stephen LovelyHands of My Father: A Hearing Boy, His Deaf Parents, and the Language of Love by Myron UhlbergThe Mighty Queens of Freeville: A Mother, a Daughter, and the Town that Raised Them by […]
Barnes & Noble Holiday Comps Down Only 7.7 Percent
Sales for the nine-week holiday period ending January 3 declined 7.7 percent on a same-store basis at Barnes & Noble, and fell 5.2 percent overall compared to a year ago. With store sales of $1.1 billion, BN says they “experienced diminished traffic, and as a result, diminished sales, due to the unprecedented fall-off of retail shopping during the last quarter of the year.” Like Borders, they say holiday sales improved towards the end: “After a slow start to the holiday season, our store performance improved and we were able to post comparable store sales increases during the last two weeks […]
What New Management Is Costing Borders
Borders filed documents with the SEC regarding severance payments for George Jones and the inducements provided to Ron Marshall to take over. Jones’s parting gifts include 18 months’ base salary plus target bonus, plus 75 percent of his promised retention bonus, good for $510,000, as long as he provides “transition consulting services” for the next three months. New ceo Marshall gets an immediate signing bonus of $250,000, plus a relocation allowance of up to $100,000 and $15,000 in legal fees. He has a “fixed three-year term of employment” with base salary of $750,000 a year and “annual bonuses at a […]
People and Company News
Nicholas Brealey Publishing has bought Davies-Black Publishing, a line of books about business and career management, from CPP, Inc (formerly Consulting Psychologists Press). The Davies-Black list of approximately 115 books will continue to be distributed by NBN, which also distributes Nicholas Brealey in the US and Canada. Ingram Digital ceo James Gray is moving over to chief strategy officer for all of Ingram’s content groups, as svp Mike Lovett moves up to CEO of Ingram Digital. At Gotham, Patrick Mulligan has been promoted to senior editor. He has been at the imprint for almost six years. Melissa Possick has joined […]
How News Gets Out of Hand
A number of outlets have misconstrued reports of small press York House negotiating for the rights to issue Herman Rosenblat’s story as a work of fiction–including a brief in today’s NYT, even though the online version of the story links directly to a York House press release. To be clear, the press is negotiating for rights to “a work of fiction…based on the screenplay, tentatively called, Flower at The Fence, about Herman Rosenblat’s life and love story.” Movie producer Harris Solomon (and his attorney), who controls film rights to the book, is the one negotiating the license. There is no […]