The company that drives online replications of many leading magazines has extended its service model to books. With Harvard Common Press as its first client/partner, Zinio has added a digital cookbooks section to its web site. Featuring about 90 titles, the site sells them at a 20 percent discount to retail price. As with magazines, the pop-up Zinio reader flips pages with a click, and renders full-color replications of each book page in two-page spreads.AnnouncementZinio site
Archives for June 2009
The Day the News Got Weird
There has been another rash of stories in traditional media about book proposals lately. One of the oddest involves deposed Miss California (and Miss USA runner-up) Carrie Prejean, who was fired by the pageant for alleged breach of contract. Prejean attracted controversy on a number of fronts, including her answer during the pageant opposing same-sex marriages in California. Recently US News & World Report reported she had a book proposal, aimed at conservative publishers. Now in a follow-up, Donald Trump’s Miss USA pageant says her book proposal is actually one of the reasons that she was fired. But Prejean’s attorney […]
Perseus Cuts Jobs, Imposes Furloughs
Perseus Books Group ceo David Steinberger announced “a reduction in staff” to employees last Thursday, along with “a summer furlough program, in order to limit the size of the reduction” with employees taking off no more than six unpaid days (including two extended holiday weekends). Steinberger also reported that “the senior leaders of the company have accepted a more significant compensation reduction to help prevent the company and our people from greater cuts.” Steinberger says “approximately 20 people are leaving the company” with “most reductions” coming from the company’s publishing units rather than the distribution services group. He indicates the […]
Lunch Weekly for Monday, June 22
Deal Reports Just e-mail to deals@PublishersMarketplace if you aren’t using the online form linked below. Report a deal using the online form The Key As usual, the handy key to our Lunch deal categories. While all reports are always welcome, those that include a category will generally receive a higher listing when it comes time to put them all together. “nice deal” $1 – $49,000 “very nice deal” $50,000 – $99,000 “good deal” $100,000 – $250,000 “significant deal” $251,000 – $499,000 “major deal” $500,000 and up FICTION Debut Alicia Bessette’s ALL COME HOME, in which a young widow forms […]
LibreDigital Delivers 100k Titles for ScrollMotion's App
iPhone app maker ScrollMotion has provided the first additional details on their “in-app” bookstore that was highlighted at Apple’s worldwide developer’s conference. LibreDigital is a “key partner” in provisioning that store and “central” to ScrollMotion’s plans, now ready to deliver “the first 100,000 books, newspaper and magazine titles” out of a promised one million titles. LibreDigital spokesperson Heidi Johnson says that “we estimate we’ll be about one to two years before we hit that [one million titles] number, based on the work we’re doing with dozens of major publishers and folks like Baker & Taylor.
Appeals Court Says S&S Violated Telephone Law with Text Message Solicitation for King Book
The ever-unpredictable Ninth Circuit (e.g. California) Court of Appeals on Friday overturned a lower court verdict and held that Simon & Schuster violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act as currently interpreted by the FCC in sending unsolicited text messages to cellphones in promoting Stephen King’s THE CELL. MediaPost says “the decision appears to mark the first time that a federal appellate court has said that the telephone law applies to text messages.” S&S had argued that a text message is not a “call” under the law–the Appeals court disagreed, saying the law itself “is silent as to whether a text […]