IDPF executive director Michael Smith will leave the organization shortly “to pursue other opportunities in the digital book space.” He will stay on during the search procress and transition to a replacement, which the organization hopes “will be completed by early January 2011.” At Random House UK, Cornerstone managing director Susan Sandon, Ebury managing director Fiona MacIntyre, Random House UK Children’s managing director Philippa Dickinson, and human resources director Neil Morrison have all been appointed to the company’s main board. CEO Gail Rebuck says in the announcement “this new structure ensures that we harness the strengths and talents at Board […]
Archives for November 2010
Bookstore News: One Saved, One Opens, Two to Close
Barnes & Noble has agreed upon a lease extension for a Fort Worth, TX store in University Park Village after indicating last month the outlet would close at the end of the lease. The mall manager says “we never wanted them to leave, as Barnes & Noble brings more to a property than simply rental income.”Star-Telegram In Bellingham, WA The Bookworm Burrow opens later this month, selling new and used children’s books.Herald But the news is not good for a couple of other stores. Chattanooga’s largest remaining independent store Rock Point Books will close in December after four years in […]
News Corp. Eliminates Book Publishing Results Breakouts
HarperCollins parent company News Corp. reported first quarter results after the close of the market Tuesday–and HarperCollins has disappeared from the radar. Among the company’s smaller-producing units, Harper’s results have been merged with the larger “newspapers and information services” accounting lines from previous reports. In a conference call with investors, company officials said “this reporting change recognizes both the way we group these businesses and a smaller percentage of total earnings that these businesses now represent.” Reinforcing the diminished importance of HarperCollins in the overall corporate picture, their name is not mentioned once in the new quarterly report–which uses the […]
The Press Has Bush Book
Following initial teasers in the Drudge Report, former President George Bush’s memoir is showing up on news desks. The NY Times says Bush writes that he considered dropping Dick Cheney from the ticket in 2004 in favor of Senator Bill Frist as “one way to demonstrate that I was in charge.” The funny part is that it was Cheney’s idea. They note the book indicates “Cheney clearly pushed Mr. Bush toward war” in Iraq. Cheney asked in 2002, “Are you going to take care of this guy, or not?” He does give “a more expansive self-critique than he did while […]
eBooks Come to Australia
The Australian version of the iBookstore has gone from a display mechanism for public domain works to a genuine ebookstore five months after the iPad launched there. Macmillan Australia, Hachette Book Group Australia, Harper Australia, Wiley Australia, Hardie Grant and Murdoch Books all say their books are now on-sale in the store. Meanwhile, the Austrlian Publishers Association says they are fielding multiple complaints from other publishers who are frustrated about the process of engaging Apple in making deals. But Macmillan’s head of digital Victoria Nash says they only “received confirmation from Apple of the launch 10 days ago.” Separately, dominant […]
As In the US, Ian Fleming Novels Are Issued As eBooks Directly from the Estate
In the UK, Ian Fleming Publications is launching 14 backlist James Bond novels as ebooks, which they are publishing directly rather than with their print partners at Penguin UK. In this case, there was no dispute about the rights: the books were signed before electronic rights were contemplated. While it’s getting a lot of coverage in the UK media, IFP did the same thing in the US in 2008. here their ebooks are sold through Amazon and the Sony estore only. Managing director of Ian Fleming Publiciations Corinne Turner says, “We are not taking on the publishers, we are just […]