The NY Daily News “obtained” a copy of Elizabeth Edwards’ book RESILIENCE, set for May 12 publication. She says John Edwards admitted his affair to her right after entering the presidential race in 2006 (almost a year before it hit the media.) “She had actually wanted him to quit the race to protect the family,” the paper says. And the she says now, “He should not have run.” Edwards’ writes “I cried and screamed, I went to the bathroom and threw up” after her husband’s admission. The Daily News says that in the book she “speaks in far more detail […]
Archives for April 2009
People and More
At Borders, longtime executive (most recently vp, Paperchase operations) Michael Oprins has been named to the new position of vp, merchandising for non-book products. He will lead buying teams in non-book categories including: music, DVD, bargain, digital, newsstand, calendars, games, trend gifts and candy. At Scholastic, David Levithan has been promoted to, vp, editorial director for Scholastic Trade Publishing. He had been executive editorial director for Scholastic Press Fiction, multimedia publishing, and PUSH (which he founded). In further adjustments at Harper UK, the Perennial imprint (launched there in 2003) will be phased out. Paperbacks will keep the same colophon as […]
More Things to Read
It’s a light news day, but a number of interesting publishing folks have been rolled out blogs in recent days, so if you’re looking for more things to read, consider: Oxford University Press digital publishing and business development guru Evan Schnittman has his own blog now (he used to contribute more occasionally to the OUP group blog), Black Plastic Glasses. Brian O’Leary at Magellan Media Partners (and sometime consulting partner with Mike Shatzkin at the Idea Logical Company) is posting on issues related to both books and magazines. Charlotte Abbott and Kat Meyer are blogging “for those who read & […]
Some Kindle User Data
Further to our London Book Fair report on Bowker PubTrack’s consumer survey data about demographic preferences for different e-readers, and the larger theme of understanding that different people prefer different e-reading platforms, Richard Curtis’s blog tipped us to a popular Amazon forum asking “Kindle Owner’s Age.” Though there are a lot of posts to page through, the forum is highly recommended for anyone wanting to better understand the Kindle consumer. We extracted about 75 percent of the responses on age (representing about 700 responses, taking equally from the earliest and most recent postings, which show very similar age distributions). Per […]
Comp Sales Off 4.5% at Waterstone's
Following the reported drops at WH Smith earlier this month, Waterstone’s parent HMV has reported that same-store sales declined by 4.5 percent in the last 16 weeks of their fiscal year, ending, April 25 (and 3.5 percent overall in that period.) For the full year, both comp sales and overall sales fell 3.8 percent at the bookseller. The company did not report actual sales today, but Waterstone’s has sales of 564 million pounds last year, so presumably this year’s sales are approximately 542.6 million pounds. The Bookseller says that layoffs have been discussed at the store level in recent weeks, […]
Justice Department Looking at Antitrust Implications of Google Settlement
It’s been pretty grey whether the judge presiding over the settlement of the Google Book Search settlement would have any compelling interest in the potential virtual monopoly that Google would be granted over electronic rights to orphan works, but now the Justice Department has opened an inquiry. The NYT says Justice notified the parties to the settlement “that they were investigating various antitrust issues related to the far-reaching agreement.” The paper adds, “The inquiry does not necessarily mean that the department will oppose the settlement, which is subject to a court review. But it suggests that some of the concerns […]