Borders warned investors on December 9 that they faced a potential “liquidity shortfall” in early 2011 and within the last 24 hours that warning has turned into reality for some of its major supporters–including big publishers. People familiar with the communications tell us that Borders ceo Mike Edwards contacted some publishers recently to indicate that Borders would be postponing payments due, now that the holidays are over. The Borders executive team is due in New York in early January, we are told, both to discuss next steps with major vendors and to present their case to banks and investors. According […]
Archives for December 2010
A Little Slower than Amazon, BN Issues Nook Sales Superlatives (As eBooks Outsell Print on BN.com)
Barnes & Noble is playing catch-up with Amazon’s stream of releases about how Kindle is bestest, fastest, biggest-selling item. BN says they have sold “millions” of Nook devices, declaring “the line has become the company’s biggest bestseller ever in its nearly 40-year history.” More interesting is that they “now sell more digital books” (presumably calculated in units rather than dollars) than printed books via BN.com. Despite technical problems (which are not mentioned in the press release), BN says they sold “nearly one million” ebooks on Christmas Day–giving you some idea of how many Nook readers were under the tree. Release […]
A Look Back At 2010
I’m usually not big on grand end-of-year lists and proclamations, but 2010 certainly has been the busiest, most complicated and most fascinating year since I stumbled my way into Publishers Lunch just over 10 years ago. It has been a challenge and a pleasure to lead the way with coverage of some of these complex new developments, including the first comprehensive story on the invention of the agency model and similar breaking pieces on agency’s sales tax complications, the agency/wholesale hybrid model, the antitrust investigation in Texas, and more. Every year, our “person of the year” is really you, our […]
More eNews: Sony Claims Big Plans; Grandinetti In LAT; Spring Design Suit Against BN Moves Forward
Sony‘s deputy president for the Digital Reading Business Division Fujio Noguchi pretends that the company remains serious about the ebook business, telling an Asian tech web site, “We are aiming to acquire a share of 40% in the global electronic book market in fiscal 2012.” (The site mistakenly believes that Sony has been “leading” the US ebook market along with Amazon….) The company is looking to develop reading-focused color epaper screens: “I believe that color e-paper should be employed for e-book readers with a focus on displaying texts. So, we are sending such requests to e-paper device makers.” The LAT […]
Larsson Sells 115,000 eBooks On Christmas and Day After
After Amazon reported that THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO was their biggest-selling ebook on December 25 and most-gifted holiday ebook, Random House has said that on December 25 and 26, they sold 115,000 units of Stieg Larsson ebooks across the entire Millennium Trilogy. The company indicated their total ebook sales for that two-day holiday period “rose more than 300% over last year’s sales” (measured in units) setting a new two-day record. (Some executives expressed disappointment to us that early statistics for Christmas Day ebook sales weren’t higher still, since ebook sales have been running about three times last year’s sales throughout […]
Skyhorse Buys Sports Publishing Assets, Prepares Children’s List
Skyhorse Publishing has purchased the assets of Sports Publishing, which went bankrupt in 2008. That gives them rights to over 700 books, including works by Michael Phelps and Dick Vitale. They will relaunch Sports Publishing as a new imprint with 40 revised and updated titles in fall 2011. In the same season, the company will launch a new children’s imprint, Sky Pony Press. They expect to start with 15 to 20 titles. Former publisher and founder of Millbrook Press Jean Reynolds is serving as consulting editor. The company says sales for 2010 were up more than 60 percent over 2009.