A spokesperson for Lowenstein Sandler tells PW (but, as far as we can tell, not Barron’s or the Financial Times) that the two sources where claimed some publishers had hired the firm as counsel regarding Borders’ receivables were “incorrect.” Separately, we note that an online forum for Borders employees quotes a memo from ceo Ron Marshall after the chain reported disappointing holiday sales earlier this month: “Based on our results this holiday, we have some difficult changes to make in the days and weeks ahead within our organization. There is no way around it–without increasing sales, we are forced to […]
Archives for January 2010
People
Dorchester has promoted Leah Hultenschmidt to editorial director, filling the position vacated held by Alicia Condon. In her ten years with the company, Hultenschmidt has directed the publicity and promotions department, has built and overseen the company’s website and has edited the romance and western genres. Kensington has promoted Alex Nicolajsen to digital marketing manager. She was the executive assistant to Steven Zacharius. At William Morrow, Tavia Kowalchuk has been promoted to senior marketing director. Also at Harper, note that the recently-announced Digital support divsion (and digital technology services group) have no effect on Harper Media, their digital publishing group. […]
Kitty Kelley Oprah Bio Set for April 13
Crown will release Kitty Kelley’s 544-page OPRAH: A Biography in a promised “first printing in excess of a half-million copies.” The North American laydown will include a simultaneous ebook edition, along with an audio release. Crown says Kelley had 850 interviews with sources for the book, “many of whom have never before spoken for publication about Winfrey.”
Amazon Launches "Active Content" App Program
In the second big pre-tablet announcement this week from Amazon, the company has announced plans to allow the creation of the Kindle version apps, which they are calling “active content,” later this year. For now they are just inviting interested parties to register for a limited beta of the Kindle Developer Kit, which will be available for download sometime next month. Like Apple’s App Store model–and the new self-publishing Kindle royalty option announced yesterday–creators of active content will receive 70 percent of the revenue, minus delivery fees of 15 cents per megabyte. Small apps of less than 1 mb can […]
People
More promotions from the Random House publishing group: Junessa Viloria is now an assistant editor at Ballantine; Angela Polidoro is an assistant editor at Bantam; Randall Klein moves up to associate editor at Bantam Dell; and Jessica Sebor is now an assistant editor at Bantam Dell. To clarify yesterday’s report on changes at Harper UK, Lynne Drew will oversee all of the programs within the Harper Fiction division–but not any of the Harper Press fiction lines.
AAP Prepares Guidelines for Meetings with File-Sharing Sites
The AAP’s Online Piracy Working Group is close to finalizing recommendations of best practices to encourage file-sharing sites “to be more proactive to prevent infringements” of books. The group hopes to move these sites beyond simply responding to takedown notices, “to install filters or take other measures to stop unauthorized copies of books from appearing on their services,” the Chronicle of Higher Education reports. The AAP’s Ed McCoyd says they plan to meet with several file-sharing sites over the next few weeks to present those recommendations. Legal director for Wiley Maria Danzilo says “The whole point of these best practices […]