HMV is making the same mess out of a Waterstone’s sale that they have made out of the booksellers’ neverending “turnaround.” The fundamental problem is threefold: They spent a while pretending the bookseller wasn’t for sale when it obviously was; they are selling at the worst time ever to sell an English-language book chain; and they have had unrealistic price expectations for the current market. Making it worse, HMV needs to raise enough cash to satisfy their lenders since they are in violation of their banking convenants, but the Waterstone’s proceeds will not be sufficient by themselves. The latest update […]
Archives for May 2011
eNews: $1 Million More in Funding for Figment; Millions of Images from Yale
Teen writing site Figment has secured an additional $1 million in angel investor funding, which will go to developing new sales, marketing and distribution models and a marketplace where authors and publishers can sell their works. Figment will also move into publishing this fall with Blake Nelson’s DREAM SCHOOL, a sequel to his novel GIRL serialized in the 1990s by Sassy magazine. Nelson and Figment will split royalties equally, and PGW will distribute the book online and as a limited-edition print book. PaidContent Yale University has made its entire digital image collection available online for free and for unlimited use. […]
On the Way: Trump and Townshend
Though not yet confirmed, RealClearPolitics claims that Donald Trump is working on a “policy book” in connection with his potential presidential ambitions that Regnery has “tentatively” set for late-summer publication. They say that Regnery’s Harry Crawford will edit the manuscript, “which will be heavily ghostwritten, with Trump playing a supporting role in generating content.” More certain is that guitarist for The Who Pete Townshend is working on a memoir, currently titled PETE TOWNSHEND: WHO HE?, that agent Ed Victor is currently auctioning. Townshend has met with the finalists and the auction is expected to conclude next week. Waterstone’s spokesman Jon […]
In and Out of Traditional Publishing: Victor, Curtis Brown UK, and Stephen Leather
Following the announcement of agent Ed Victor’s publishing venture Bedford Square Books, Curtis Brown UK managing director Jonathan Lloyd admits that his agency is well down the path of formulating their own strategy for republishing their clients’ out-of-print works. “We are right behind him, but with a rather larger list,” Lloyd tells The Bookseller. Meanwhile, Victor told us that while he is “having a lot of fun, going back to my roots” as a publisher, “first and foremost I’m an agent…. My day job is being a literary agent and taking care of my clients.” At the same time, Victor […]
Senate IP Legislation Back on the Table, but AAP Objects That Cyberlockers Aren’t Mentioned
Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy re-introduced a new version of the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) that was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee last year but stalled out afterwards. The PROTECT IP Act has a narrower focus, which would allow the government to go after “rogue websites” containing pirated or infringed-upon content, and would allow for court orders against ISPs, search engines, ad networks and online payment processors to stop supporting such sites and for Google to stop linking to them. “The PROTECT IP Act targets the most egregious actors, and is an important first step to putting […]
Briefs: CEO Letters from Borders, Lonely Planet; Zondervan Warehouse to Close; and More
In the wake of yesterday’s news that Lonely Planet would shift most of its web operations to the UK and lay off approximately 70 employees, CEO Matt Goldberg went into more detail about the reorganization in a memo to staff. In addition to reiterating the reorganization causes – losing $13 million on foreign currency due to a strong Australian dollar and reducing costs by 18 percent – Goldberg indicated the company’s digital revenues climbed to 21 percent from from 9 percent over the past four years, “which indicates our digital business has momentum.” Borders CEO Mike Edwards is taking his […]