Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand: A Novel by Helen Simonson (Random House, $25, 9781400068937)One Amazing Thing: A Novel by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (Voice, $23.99, 9781401340995)Horns: A Novel by Joe Hill (Morrow, $25.99, 9780061147951)One Good Dog: A Novel by Susan Wilson (St. Martin’s, $22.99, 9780312571252)The Surrendered: A Novel by Chang-rae Lee (Riverhead, $26.95, 9781594489761)The Journal Keeper: A Memoir by Phyllis Theroux (Atlantic Monthly, $24, 9780802118974)The Dream of Perpetual Motion: A Novel by Dexter Palmer (St. Martin’s, $24.99, 9780312558154)Making Toast: A Family Story by Roger Rosenblatt (Ecco, $21.99, 9780061825934)Angelology: A Novel by Danielle Trussoni (Viking, $27.95, 9780670021475)House Rules: A Novel by Jodi Picoult […]
Archives for January 2010
Bezos Admits to "Millions" of Kindles, As Amazon Grows 42 Percent
In reporting, Jeff Bezos finally mentioned something involving numbers with respect to Kindles, which are now owned by “millions of people.” And ratio of Kindle sales to print sales continues to grow: “when we have both editions, we sell 6 Kindle books for every 10 physical books.” Bezos even indicated specifically, “this is year-to-date and includes only paid books — free Kindle books would make the number even higher.” Amazon reported a huge fourth quarter, with sales of $9.52 billion, 42 percent higher than a year ago. Net income rose even more, up 71 percent at $384 million. North American […]
Borders Fires Another 10 Percent of Corporate Staff
Borders is eliminating another 124 positions from their corporate staff–about two-thirds of those from the company’s Ann Arbor headquarters–along with 40 positions at their warehouses, announced by e-mail, and confirmed to the Ann Arbor News. The company had signaled earlier in an internal memo we cited last week the need for further “adjustments to our cost structure.” Spokesperson Anne Roman says, “This is a situation where the company is adjusting its payroll to the realities of what its sales situation is.” SVP of human resources Shereen Solaiman wrote to employees, “While at this time we do not plan further wide-scale […]
They're Back: Amazon, Hachette and Others File New Google Books Objections
With today’s filing deadline, the court has registered a wave of new opt-outs and objections to the revised Google Books settlement agreement, though so far it’s a fraction of the over 400 objections to the original agreement. Though Judge Denny Chin made it clear that he wanted to hear objections to the revised provisions only, some parties couldn’t help themselves and have repeated earlier points lightly clothed in new language. Amazon’s objection follows a middle line, reiterating many basics points from their first filing but also addressing some of the new issue. They believe the agreement continues to constitute illegal […]
People
Summer Smith has joined Houghton Mifflin Harcourt as publicity manager. She was previously a senior publicist at Putnam and Riverhead. Whitney Peeling is leaving Public Affairs and Jaime Leifer is returning to the company as publicity director from her stint in the pr department at The New Yorker. Lisa Degroff has been promoted to senior marketing manager, hardcover at Penguin Children’s. Esi Sogah has been promoted to associate editor at the Morrow/Avon imprint. In the Morrow-Avon-Eos-Morrow Cookbooks publicity department, Brianne Halverson has been promoted to associate director; Danielle Bartlett has been promoted to senior publicity manager; and Adam Rochkind has […]
The Five-Minute iBooks Presentation
“We’re going to open up the floodgates for the rest of the publishers starting this afternoon.”