Today’s SuperKindle press conference unfolded essentially along the planned/leaked script. (Except that we were amused to note Jeff Bezos had to read his expansive “mission statement” for Kindle from the monitor.) It’s better than a piece of plain paper, it studies better than a textbook, and starting this summer it swoops in to try and save three newspapers–except that it lists for $489. The new model, now positioned as the second member of the Kindle “family,” is–a bigger version of the current Kindle. The actual news that was not already leaked is that this summer, the New York Times, Washington […]
Archives for May 2009
People and Awards
Kate Davis has been promoted to associate editor for Putnam and Marian Wood Books, where she has been “deeply involved in Marian’s entire list.” At Simon & Schuster Children’s, Laura Antonacci has been promoted to marketing associate, education and library. Other PEN award winners include Steve Coll’s THE BIN LADENS for nonfiction,and author of Knockemstiff Donald Ray Pollock for the $35,000 Robert Bingham fellowship for writers.Site list The National Book Foundation presented Innovations in Reading prizes to five recipients, including James Patterson’s ReadKiddoRead.com and the readergirlz blog.
Harlequin Remains Bright Spot for Torstar
While Torstar’s newspaper business suffers heavily from the advertising slump, sales at the company’s Torstar unit have remained strong, boosted further by the weak Canadian dollar. “Harlequin’s revenues, to date, have not been significantly affected by the global, and in particular, the US economic situation,” the company said. First quarter sales of $124.5 million (CA) were up $14.8 million from a year ago, or 13.5 percent, though $11.5 million of the increase was due to foreign exchange. EBITDA of $21.8 million was up almost 18 percent, from $18.5 million a year ago. The unit took a $1.4 million charge related […]
HBG Adds Speakers Bureau
Hachette Book Group has joined the likes of Macmillan, Harper, Simon & Schuster, Penguin and Knopf in officially launching the Hachette Speakers Bureau. Like S&S, they are working in partnership with Greater Talent Network. Participating HBG authors include Christopher Buckley, John Feinstein, Christopher Hitchens, Sir Harold Evans, Charla Krupp, and Dr. Bill and Martha Sears,
It's for Newspapers; It's for Textbooks; It's SuperKindle
Yes we’re jumping ahead to name the new oversized Kindle that everyone is presuming Amazon will introduce at tomorrow morning’s press conference (and I already like our name better than the Kindle DX moniker Engadget floats. After we reminded folks yesterday that the first wave of media hype focused on the SK’s potential for newspapers and magazines and forgot that the early rumor was it’s aimed at the textbook market, the second wave has washed ashore via Bloomberg and then the WSJ. Sources for the two accounts agree that Princeton, Reed College, part of the University of Virginia, Arizona State […]
People and Awards
Sheila Keenan joins Abrams tomorrow as senior editor, working on the Abrams ComicArts list, reporting to executive editor Charles Kochman. Most recently she was at Scholastic, where she helped launch their Graphix comics imprint. At the Penguin Group, Allison McLean has been promoted to associate director of publicity for Portfolio and Sentinel. She joined Portfolio in 2002, before the line formally launched. At Little, Brown Children’s, Lauren Hodge has been promoted to assistant editor. Bertelsmann has put Christa Gomez on the company’s supervisory board as employee representative. Aside from two women from the controlling Mohn family, Gomez is the only […]