We’ve been reporting piecemeal on Books-a-Million’s expansion into new locations–taking over dozens of former Borders and Walden locations–which has been accompanied by a parallel series of stores closures. Wednesday the company issued a summary press release, saying they will open 41 new stores “in early November,” but have closed 21 “underperforming locations” during their third quarter. President Terrance Finlay says in the release, “We have been working diligently in the last several months to find ways to keep a number of former Borders store locations in operation under the BAM! brand, and these store openings are the culmination of that […]
Archives for October 2011
People, Etc.
Among the continuing changes at Sterling Lord Literistic, agent Ira Silverberg is leaving the agency in mid- to late-November and will join the National Endowment for the Arts as literature director, starting December 5. Silverberg wrote to colleagues in an e-mail: “After 26 years in book publishing, it was time for a change. This particular change will keep me very close to the field I grew up in. I’m honored to do this kind of government service and am thrilled that I’ll be able to help the community of independent publishers, literary journals, writing centers and writers who are supported […]
eNews: Anobii Prepares to Sell eBooks; Freethy Sells 1 Million Self-Published Books; and More
UK-based social book recommendation site Anobii announced that as part of their coming relaunch, they have reached agreements to sell ebooks from more than 10 publishers, including the UK divisions of Penguin, Random House, Harper Collins, Hachette, Bloomsbury, Harlequin and Wiley, along with Pan Macmillan, Faber & Faber and Canongate. Digital editions will be available for sale as of the end of October, with print books to follow at a later date. get them instantly on their free Anobii ebook apps. They will have Anobii iOS reading apps at launch, and plan to add Android apps “shortly.” Their cloud-based service […]
Accounting House of Horrors? What Agency Does to Amazon’s Reports
Ever since the agency model first appeared in early 2010 we’ve been writing about some of the unanticipated effects of that shift, and today we turn our attention to another previously overlooked ramification: what agency does to retailer accounting. In public Amazon opposed the agency model on behalf of protecting their power to price ebooks and offer discounts to their customers. But agency has an important accounting impact as well. For regular/wholesale ebook sales, Amazon books the full value of what the consumer pays. But for agency ebooks, under standard accounting rules the company only books the commission they receive […]
Bookselling: OFT Clears Amazon/Book Depository Merger; St. Mark’s Rent Won’t Be Reduced; and More
As some of us expected, the UK’s Office of Fair Trading has cleared the way for Amazon’s proposed acquisition of The Book Depository. The OFT said that according to the evidence it received, The Book Depository only accounted for “between two to four per cent of online retailing of hard-copy books,” and as such didn’t qualify as a “significant source of competitive rivalry to Amazon.” Further, the OFT added, “the evidence indicated that competition within Amazon Marketplace would continue to be strong post-merger, for a wide range of book titles.” As to whether the merger would reduce competition in “deep-range” […]
Copyright Office Outlines Forthcoming Projects
The US Copyright Office published a report on their priorities and special projects for the next two years, which is something between a wishlist and a to-do list. A number of their topics for further study are items that had been forestalled by the now-rejected Google Books Settlement–and still might not move forward since to a large extent they require action by Congress. Nonetheless, the office has prepared preliminary analysis “identifying the issues related to mass book digitization—developments” and plans on further “research and policy discussions.” They say they “will continue to provide analysis and support to Congress” on dealing with […]