The AAP reported their October sales numbers this morning, with everyone’s favorite number to watch–their tabulation of ebook sales for 12 reporting publishers–up slightly at $40.7 million. (They have been about the same, month to month, since July.) With net print trade sales from a larger group of publishers reported at $569 million, ebooks comprised 6.7 percent of sales for the month. That’s below the 8 percent of trade sales that ebooks comprise for the entire year through October. (We’ve discussed previously that monthly ebook figures may not be all that precise; also as previously written, our percentages differ from […]
Archives for December 2010
People
David Rosenthal begins getting the old team back together for his new imprint at Penguin Group, hiring Sarah Hochman as senior editor, starting January 10. Hochman was a senior editor at Simon & Schuster until August. At Harper’s Avon/Morrow division, Kristine Macrides has been promoted to director of marketing and sales development. In Harper UK’s digital team under David Roth-Ey, Jo Forshaw moves up to director of audio; Isabella Steel becomes digital key account manager, responsible for marketing and promotion of digital titles across the group; Katy Whitehead the new role of head of interactive products; and Friday Project and […]
Market Mulls Barnes & Noble & Borders
The market and media are both continuing to speculate on Bill Ackman’s attention-getting theoretical offer finance a purchase of Barnes & Noble and merger with Borders. Barnes & Noble stock jumped sharply in early trading yesterday and gave back some of the gains to finish at $14.69 a share. But they have rallied again today, almost touching the $16 price floated by Ackman about an hour ago. Borders, which is almost a penny stock, rose even more on a percentage basis yesterday on huge volume, but is down for the day today. As we suggested yesterday, the most likely outcome […]
Now Kindle Editions, Of Course
Amazon waved their pr hands furiously during Barnes & Noble’s introduction of Nook Color, and today they make news for the possibility the company is developing their own browser-based equivalent to Google eBooks. To be fair, and clear, the company did not make any announcement: a short piece in Computerworld with just a glimmer of information has spread far and wide. Amazon told Computerworld they will offer some kind of unspecified “demonstration” today of a revised, expanded vision of their Kindle for Web app, which currently only shows and shares book samples. Just like Google eBooks, it will “enable users […]
Indies and Google eBooks: Second-Day Scrutiny
As reported yesterday morning, Google eBooks rolled out in various forms during the day yesterday, including integration with participating partner stores from the American Booksellers Association’s ecommerce platform. The ABA posted a list of stores “that have opted-in to sell Google eBooks online”–but as of our check earlier this morning, only 61 of the listed store websites have integrated Google eBooks and let customers know that somewhere on their home page (while 62 store sites have yet to do so.) While there was celebration that at some indies went live in concert with Google–and WORD Books of Brooklyn, NY reported […]
Another Top Tenish List
Salon critic Laura Miller’s top books of the year look a lot like the other lists, so our preliminary Best of the Best of 2010 compilation from last week is looking more solid by the day: FictionRoom, by Emma DonoghueA Visit From the Goon Squad, by Jennifer EganFreedom, by Jonathan FranzenFaithful Place, by Tana FrenchSuper Sad True Love Story, by Gary Shteyngart NonfictionThe Possessed: Adventures With Russian Books and the People Who Read Them, by Elif BatumanThe Big Short, by Michael LewisI.O.U., by John LanchesterLet the Swords Encircle Me: Iran — a Journey Behind the Headlines, by Scott PetersonThe Immortal […]