As expected, “activist” investor Ron Burkle revealed yesterday that he has taken the next logical step in his battle with Barnes & Noble, suing the company’s board in a Delaware Court. In his SEC filing, he disclosed additional purchases of BN shares in recent days as well, now controlling a 19.62 percent stake–just below the 20 percent limit of the company’s poison pill. In the lawsuit Burkle rails against a “self-dealing scheme designed to entrench the Riggio family in their control of Barnes & Noble and prevent an effective proxy contest from being mounted by Yucaipa or other public stockholders.” […]
Archives for May 2010
People, Etc.
John Crutcher, who co-founded Bloomberg Press and was most recently global director of trade sales, has left Bloomberg LP following the press’s partnership with Wiley and can be reached at jcrutcher@gmail.com. The Toby Press laid off editor Deborah Meghnagi Bailey, who will now work for them freelance, and has canceled three books from its fall list of six or seven titles. Owner Matthew Miller says that following the acquisition of Koren Publishers Jerusalem and Maggid Books, “because we’ve got so many things going on, we can’t afford to do the kind of things we were doing before, when we could […]
International Bookselling: Borders Australia Challenges Amazon; Waterstone's Add Papercchase
Borders Australia is fighting Amazon (which does not have a local operation) with a new price guarantee, which the Sydney Morning Herald says “signals a new era in the way Australian book sellers compete in the global online market.” They will promise that if a customer finds a book that costs less from Amazon once shipping is included, Borders will pay the difference in price plus 10 percent.SMH In the UK, the FT reports that Waterstone’s will add in-store concessions from stationery chain Paperchase in 20 stores. Still owned by Borders, Paperchase used to have boutiques in the now-bankrupt Borders […]
The June 2010 Indie Next List
#1: The Passage by Justin CroninBackseat Saints by Joshilyn JacksonThe Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee BenderThe Madonnas of Echo Park by Brando SkyhorseFirst Contact: Or, It’s Later Than You Think by Evan ManderySo Cold the River by Michael KorytaJunkyard Dogs: A Walt Longmire Mystery by Craig JohnsonThe Marrowbone Marble Company by Glenn TaylorTake Good Care of the Garden and the Dogs: Family, Friendships, and Faith in Small-Town Alaska by Heather LendeSeven Year Switch by Claire CookThe Burning Wire: A Lincoln Rhyme Novel by Jeffery DeaverA Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer EganWho Fears Death by Nnedi OkoraforMy […]
Publishers Report Strong Initial Sales and Gaining at iBookstore
It was just a year ago that Amazon surprised publishing executives when previewing the SuperKindle by announcing that Kindle sales had spiked to “35 percent of books where we have Kindle editions.” With this year’s launch of the iPad and Apple’s iBookstore, however, everyone has been quite focused on assessing the impact of this new entrant in the accelerating overall ebook market. Apple’s announced numbers of over one million devices and 1.5 million ebooks downloaded so far sound strong, albeit vague. On the device level, working from reasonable postulations you can view the iPad launch as boosting the market for […]
People, Awards, Etc.
Courtney Young has been promoted to editor at Portfolio, Sentinel and Current. The Copyright Clearance Center has named veteran attorney Iris Geik as associate general counsel. She was in-house counsel at WGBH and, since 1994, had served as an outside counsel to Reed Elsevier and other organizations on legal and copyright policy issues. Judges have been named for the 2010 National Book Awards and publishers can (and must) request entry guidelines. “The postmark deadline for the Awards entry form is June 15.” In vague news about forthcoming books, St. Martin’s will publish Andrew Morton‘s embargoed Angelina Jolie Bio on August […]