Two of the biggest releases this week more than lived up to advance billing. Random House announced that George R.R. Martin‘s A DANCE WITH DRAGONS sold 298,000 copies on its first day on sale in North America, comprising 170,000 printed copies, 110,000 ebooks and 18,000 audio units. President and publisher Gina Centrello says in a release the sales are “wildly exceeding our retailers’ most optimistic expectations. With George’s outstanding print edition sales, his readers are clearly indicating they want to place this new hardcover on their bookshelves alongside his earlier volumes.” RHPG publisher of digital content Scott Shannon echoes for the […]
Archives for July 2011
Announcements: Cambridge UP Offers Digital Content Platform For Other Publishers, Cengage & Blackboard
Cambridge University Press will launch a new integrated ebook and digital content platform for other academic publishers, called University Publishing Online, in October. The new platform is based on the ‘Cambridge Books Online’ ebook delivery system, which offers access to thousands of front and backlist PDF titles in a fully searchable environment. Boydell & Brewer, Liverpool University Press, the Mathematical Association of America, and Foundation Books, based in India, are the first publishers to join the new site, with additional partners announced in the coming weeks. Cengage Learning is partnering with Blackboard in an attempt to streamline access to digital […]
Borders Is Headed to Liquidation As Najafi Offer Is Withdrawn (Or Not “Supported”)
Uncertainty over exactly what Najafi Companies intended to do with Borders if they bought it led to collapse of the purchase offer by the end of Wednesday and the chain is headed to liquidation unless another bidder comes forward or Najafi prevails during the actual auction. In the day’s preamble, the creditors committee filed an objection in bankruptcy court to Najafi’s offer, which was so open-ended as to allow the possibility that he would still cancel leases and liquidate the chain while keeping “valuable intellectual property (i.e., the Borders name and related intellectual property rights) and other assets for less […]
Borders Assures Landlords That The Rush To Sell is The Fault of Lenders
Though the myriad of objections filed by landlords by Monday afternoon’s deadline over Borders’ prospective sale to Najafi was par for the course, Borders filed their own response motion in bankruptcy court late Tuesday. In it they say the accelerated sale process owes to GE Capital’s stipulation under the amended financing agreement that the company must find a buyer by July 29 – and have the sale approved by July 22 — lest they default. “The sale simply cannot take place in the timeframe required if there are any further delays in the schedule,” Borders stated. “If the sale does […]
Today In Books Not Published
As publishers theoretically tempt Maria Shriver into writing a memoir, Page Six says that Arnold Schwarzenegger’s own plans to publish a book will likely have to wait on her. By their account in April “his lawyers were reviewing fine print on an agreement for a multimillion-dollar memoir deal.” A spokesperson tells the column, “I can confirm that the governor is considering a memoir and has looked at offers from different publishers.” But as one publisher tells Page six anonymously, “no woman is going to pay to read Arnold’s story through his eyes.” Shriver is represented by Jan Miller at Dupree […]
Remembrances: Carlisle, Roszak
Editor, novelist and former president of PEN America Henry Coffin Carlisle, Jr., 84, died yesterday in San Francisco of complications from pneumonia. He began his publishing career in New York at Knopf in 1954, editing books under the direction of Blanche Knopf. The author of many novels, along with his wife and frequent co-translator and co-author Olga, he helped organize the publication in the West of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s THE FIRST CIRCLE, THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO while the author was still in the USSR. He was elected President of PEN America in 1976. In addition to his wife of sixty years, he […]