Yesterday Serpent’s Tail announced that THE PASSPORT, Nobel winner Herta Mueller’s her first book in English translation, originally published by them in 1989, will be reissued October 19th as a $12.95 paperback. Macmillan tells Bloomberg that they are reprinting 5,000 hardcover copies each of the THE LAND OF GREEN PLUMS (Northwestern University Press has the paperback rights, as noted yesterday, and is reprinting 20,000 copies) and THE APPOINTMENT, along with 20,000 paperbacks of the latter. Northwestern tells Bloomberg they are also negotiating to reprint TRAVELING ON ONE LEG. And the University of Nebraska Press reminded the trade they have Mueller’s […]
Archives for October 2009
Barnes & Noble's New Earnings Schedule Has Bookstore Comps Down 4.1 Percent
Barnes & Noble announced results for their new fiscal quarter, aligned to dovetail with the just-acquired BN College. Reporting sales for the past nine weeks of the new quarter, same-store sales at BN fell 4.1 percent at $665 million, while results at BN.com rose 8 percent to $91 million. The retailer said that for the full fiscal 2010 quarter, they expect that comp-store sales decline to range between 1 percent and 3 percent–meaning they see sales improving from here. Of course those forward-looking comparisons are set against a lower bar–October is when book sales started to plunge last year as […]
Herta Müller Wins Nobel for Literature
The judges remained “Eurocentric” after all, picking the Romanian-born German novelist. They couldn’t resist her writing about the “landscape of the dispossessed” through “the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose.” Muller had jumped up in UK betting in recent days, driving speculation of a leak from the Swedish Academy. Her Impac winner The Land of the Green Plums looks to be available in the US from Northwestern University Press; 2002’s The Appointment looks available from Picador.Guardian
New Google Settlement Due November 9
At a hearing this morning before Judge Denny Chin, November 9 was set as the date for the Google Books Settlement parties to submit their revised version of settlement. Attorney for the Authors Guild Michael Boni indicates to the WSJ they hope to “seek final approval of the amended pact in December or early January”–implying that Chin would remain with the case, and no additional notice would be provided to class members. Chin indicated that “he expected he will only allow objections to any new provisions.” He said, “Everyone has a pretty good idea what’s on the table. Targeting the […]
Kindle Goes International; Now Comprises 48 Percent of Amazon's Sales for Titles Available
The so-called “UK Kindle” turns out to be an international Kindle sold via Amazon’s US site, as the company announced this morning. They will start shipping the new Kindle, now with international wireless capability, starting on October 19, priced at $279. At the same time, the domestic-only Kindle has been reduced to $259. AT&T is providing the wireless global service, said to be available in “over 100 countries.” But not yet in one of the biggest English-language markets, Canada, according to an AP account. They received this message instead: “Unfortunately, we are currently unable to ship Kindles or offer Kindle […]
Kindle Launches Head-Spinning International Questions, Too
Kindle’s international availability, along with the forthcoming iRex reader with its own version of international wireless connectivity, will bring to the forefront a variety of knotty questions about rights, release timing, and pricing. In an interview with Wired, Amazon indicates that they will “pay royalties depending on the territory of purchase” (so if a customer purchases from the UK, regardless of where they live, the UK publisher is credited with the sale.) It’s not clear yet, however, how Amazon will handle open-market territories. Selling the US edition can in many cases save customers VAT. On the other hand, many UK […]