3M has announced the ebook library initiative they have quietly been putting together for months, preparing for an official unveiling at ALA in late June, with a beta program in place at 10 libraries by late July or early August and targeting a rollout to “early adopters” in October or November. Library Systems Digital Business Development Leader Tom Mercer says “for people willing to sell ebooks to libraries, we think we bring a lot of value and a good alternative to OverDrive.” All of the beta participants already are OverDrive customers; Mercer says they are “targeting people that are unsatisfied […]
Archives for May 2011
Monsoon to Add Textbook Rental Market
Monsoon Commerce is joining the fast-growing online textbook rental market, which has attracted a lot of venture capital and fast-growing players such as Chegg and BookRenter. Calling it “the first online textbook-rental marketplace”–since it will have multiple vendors offering, and the sellers are also the renters–they are enrolling seller/renters now through Alibris to prepare for next fall’s back-to-school season. They say in the announcement that “current estimates put textbook rentals at nearly 15% of the online textbook market. CEO Brian Elliott says after the Alibris launch, “we’ll extend the book rental capabilities we’’ve built to our Monsoon Commerce retail partners.” […]
ABA Adds Over 100 Members; Publishers, Agents and Retailers Look to Each Other’s Turf Pre-BEA
In other bookselling news, the ABA says in advance of next week’s annual meeting at BEA that their membership increased for the second year in a row–this time gaining a significant 102 members, to 1,502 in all. (A little bit of that gain may also be attributed to the ABA’s merger with the Association of Booksellers for Children.) Repeating a hint he gave in a speech in the UK recently, ABA ceo Oren Teicher says the organization is “working on a project to help some stores where Borders has closed. There is an opportunity in some markets that might be […]
Borders Wants Extension on Filing and Soliciting Chapter 11 Exit Strategy
Yesterday in bankruptcy court Borders filed a motion asking for an extension on their exclusive period to file (and receive approval) for a reorganization or sale. The current deadline to file a plan is June 16, but Borders wants another four months (also extending the deadline for approval to December 13). In the motion, Borders acknowledges what the creditors have been underscoring since the original court skirmish over the booksellers’ debtor-in-possession financing plan: “if the Debtors are not granted the requested extension of their Exclusive Periods and exclusivity is terminated, they will be in default under their DIP Credit Agreement.” […]
Mamut Gets Waterstone’s for £53 Million, with Daunt to Run Company
The long, drawn-out process of selling Waterstone’s to minority investor Alexander Mamut is over, with his A&NN Capital Fund Management buying the bookseller for an increased price of £53 million. Parent company HMV didn’t get the £75 million it wanted (and theoretically need to help keep its lenders at bay), but the Russian billionaire paid considerably more than his reported original offer of £35 million. And Tim Waterstone, long speculated by an unimaginative UK press to be Mamut’s partner in the potential deal, will not be involved. Current managing director Dominic Myers won’t be moving with Waterstone’s, and will stay with […]
After-Market Trading Takes BN Shares Above Offering Price; Liberty Expects to Spend $500 Million
As we wrote last night (a couple of times), Wall Street views Liberty Media’s offer of $17 a share for Barnes & Noble as the opening price, not the price at which a transaction will close. Shares rose past that point by the close of the after-market last night at 8:00 and opened regular trading this morning at more than $18 a share. A number of factors are driving the share price now–some having to do with revised assessments of Barnes & Noble’s value now that someone else wants to go steady, and some relating to technical trading factors. Despite […]