Penguin will start releasing books by Tom Clancy in a variety of ebook formats for the first time beginning February 3 with his 1984 debut The Hunt for Red October. Amazon will feature a Tom Clancy Kindle Store and Sony’s eBook Store is “planning major promotions,” including “bundles of selected titles as they become available.” The rest of Clancy’s backlist will be released in ebook versions over the following seven weeks. Prices will range for $4.99 to $18.
Archives for January 2009
Kiyosaki Starts Free Wiki-Style Books
As first announced in December when Robert Kiyosaki took the cover advertisement in PW, his new work Conspiracy of the Rich: The 8 new Rules of Money will be written and publisher for free initially via a “wiki-style” presentation at www.conspiracyoftherich.com. So far just the introduction has been posted, and visitors need to register in order to read more than a small portion of the work.
Currency Helps/Hurts Indigo
Reporting results for their fiscal third quarter, ending right after Chrismas, Canada’s dominant bookseller Indigo recorded sales of $330 million, up $7.4 million from a year ago. The Indigo and Chapters superstores rose 2.2 percent on a same-store basis, while the small format Coles store comps rose 3.2 percent. Online sales fell 2.6 percent to $30 million. The plunging Canadian dollar helped sales themselves hold up, but it hurt the company’s margins. Pre-tax earnings fell 3.6 percent to $40.1 million, while net income dropped considerably at $26.8 million, down from $49.2 million last year due to various tax line items. […]
Barry Wins Overall Costa
Irish writer Sebastian Barry missed out on the Booker, but now he has won the overall Costa Award for THE SECRET SCRIPTURE. Chairman of the judges’ panel Matthew Parris cited “a narrator had been created of such a transcendence that that redeemed all the other structural weaknesses in the book.”Wire
John Updike, 76, Dies of Lung Cancer
The writer died yesterday morning, first announced with “great sadness” in a brief statement from his publisher, Knopf. “John was one of our greatest writers. He was a part of the Knopf family for over fifty years. We will all miss him terribly.” His longtime editor Judith Jones told USA Today that he was diagnosed after Thanksgiving. Coverage, obituaries, and testimonials abound. Among them:AP obitUSA Today storyChristopher Lehmann-Haupt’s NYT obitKakutani‘s appraisalDavid Ulin in the LATAnd The New Yorker has a number of reminiscences from other staff writers posted on their books blog
Durham's 'Book Ex' to Close February 14
The Book Exchange, aka The Book Ex, a “downtown Durham, NC institution,” will close after 75 years in business. Co-owner Fran Feinberg says, “It’s a terrible loss to the community. It’s not a decision we made lightly. If we thought we could make it we would, but I don’t see that happening. I guess the writing is on the wall.” Feinberg adds, “It’s becoming harder and harder to make a profit,” Feinberg said. “You’re working with a very small profit margin and then you’re looking at a very bad economy.”News Observer