Following rapid expansion under Steve Ross, HarperCollins is “closing the Collins Division and realigning the imprint” and president and publisher of the division Ross is now leaving the company. In other realignments (see below), William Morrow publisher Lisa Gallagher is leaving the company as well. The Harper imprint, under Jonathan Burnham, will absorb the Collins general non-fiction list (which will be published as Harper titles), along with Collins Reference, which retains its name as an imprint, and Collins Business, which will publish as Harper Business going forward. Bruce Nichols remains as publisher of Collins Reference and will also serve as […]
Archives for February 2009
Kindle Day 2: King is "Publisher"; Does Read-Aloud Infringe? Waiting for Mobile
Things to say about Kindle 2 on day two are a lot more interesting than yesterday’s first shot. An Amazon representative explained after yesterday’s press conference that Stephen King is acting as publisher of the Kindle-exclusive “Ur,” through the company listed as Storyville LLC on Amazon’s site. The etailer says that the “digital list price” of $3.99 was set by Storyville, and Amazon is discounting the product to $2.99 in the same way that they discount other ebooks. Amazon says it is distributing Ur electronically in partnership with Storyville, and that the publisher is selling them the ebook at a […]
BEA Shortens Show; Will Stay in NY
In the ongoing remaking of BEA to try and keep the show vital for a changing business, conference organizers confirmed today that the show will convene in New York City on an annual basis at least through 2011. So previously plans for returning to Washington DC in 2010 and Las Vegas in 2011 have been dropped. The show will get shorter as well, with the convention floor open for two days only instead of three starting next year. They will maintain a day of conferences, special events and show preview the day before the show floor opens. The new dates […]
TOC Keynotes
O’Reilly Media’s Tools of Change conference kicked off this morning in New York with three keynote speeches (tutorial sessions were held yesterday). Longtime e-publishing publishing pioneer and visionary Bob Stein–now at the Institute for the Future of the Book) had a rough start, underscoring that even technical geniuses need to prepare (and practice) ahead of time. Stein’s payoff thought was that “the principle role of publishers in the future is to build and nurture vibrant communities for authors and their readers.” Arguing that “a book is a place where readers and authors sometimes congregate,” Stein predicted that future generations will […]
The Next Phase of Content Expansion
One theme we’ve underscored over the years is the exponential explosion of printed (and printable) content we’ll be seeing in publishing that will make the already astonishing 300,000 to 500,000 new titles a year some modest. Some of it comes from self-publishing and “micro-publishing” (in which organizations and other intellectual property creators use the POD self-publishing toolset to publish–you could also call it “publishing as a service.”) Another phase comes from the way print-on-demand and software in tandem enable the nearly-instant creation of literally an infinite number of new “books” based on content that already exists in some form. And […]
Scholastic Under Fire for Selling Merch to School Kids
The Boston-based Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood is agitating against Scholastic again, claiming that through its school book clubs the company “has exploited its unique access to schools by marketing an array of non-book products in its monthly book club fliers…. The campaign said about one-third of the items for sale in Scholastic’s elementary and middle school book clubs were either not books or were books packaged with other items such as jewelry, toys and makeup.” Campaign director Susan Linn says, “The opportunity to sell directly to children in schools is a privilege, not a right. But Scholastic is abusing […]