For the third consecutive year, at Digital Book World later this month, Jack McKeown from Verso Digital (and Books & Books Westhampton Beach) will present original consumer survey data and analysis on consumer habits regarding both ebooks and print books, from responses elicited from over 2,200 respondents after November’s “Cyber Monday.” By their results, ereader ownership could as much as double over the next year–6.4 percent of respondents are “very likely” to purchase, and another 9.9 percent are somewhat likely, with 15.8 percent of people saying they “already own” an reader. (That ownership percentage is roughly consistent with what Bowker […]
Archives for January 2012
How Many Self-Published Authors Were Bestsellers In 2011?
Self-publishing success stories were another big, perhaps overplayed, theme in 2011, and the new year starts off with the transition of Amanda Hocking bestsellers to St. Martin’s. The first in her Trylle Trilogy SWITCHED was reissued on January, with both the ebook and 336-page paperback priced at $8.99. TORN follows on February 28 and ASCEND will be rereleased on April 24. Here’s a link for an NPR All Things Considered piece on Hocking. Meanwhile, a user of Penguin start-up Book Country, Kerry Schafer, elicited interest from agent Deidre Knight for her fantasy novel BETWEEN, and made a two-book deal with […]
Rachael Ray Moves to Atria; Gets Imprint (and QR Codes)
Following Reader’s Digest’s sale of the magazine Every Day With Rachael Ray to Meredith last October, the cooking personality is moving publishing houses as well, signing with Atria after nine books with Clarkson Potter. (Ray was originally published by Lake Isle Press.) Ray tells the WSJ she wants to make her new cookbooks “exciting for people using their Nooks or iPads” and says she was attracted by a Tom Watson golf book Atria published last year that used QR codes editorially to link to instructional videos. (Yes, this is the first known example of QR codes actually benefiting a publisher.) […]
Clean-Up In the Lunch Aisle
A couple of updates/corrections to stories from last week. Regarding Barnes & Noble‘s original purchase of Sterling Publishing, we have all been using the incorrect figure of “approximately $115 million,” which is what BN said in their SEC filing on January 23, 2003. In the bookseller’s printed annual report to shareholders, they explain that the real cost was $122.593 million (which include cash proceeds of just over the reported $115 million, but also $7.415 million “to reduce short-term debt.” Additionally, contrary to longstanding informal impressions within the business, someone with direct knowledge of the sale says that BN’s $122.6 million […]
The Market’s Many Minds On Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble threw a lot of different, and in some ways contradictory, data points at the market yesterday, and reactions (as well as articles) are all over the map. The general confusion is well-earned, and a lot rests on how you tell the story. Here are some things to keep in mind: The Stock Plunged–But It Also Took Off At its low point yesterday, about 5 minutes after the market opened, Barnes & Noble’s stock was down more than 30 percent, to about $9.40 a share. In today’s volatile environment, that’s what happens when you miss or lower your […]
If This Story Is Right It Shows How Weak the Agency Lawsuits and Investigations Are
Washington antitrust attorney and former Justice Department lawyer Andre Barlow indicates to paidContent that in Justice’s current investigation “the main issue at stake is Apple and the publishers’ use of so-called ‘most favored nation’ clauses to set pricing.” Similarly, as they note, lead class action attorney Steve Berman writes, “The mfn clauses are significant restraints of trade and part of the anticompetitive acts we will attack.” Yet, as the article notes, “‘most favored nation’ clauses are not illegal, and are used in a variety of industries such as medical services.” Even Barlow “says that the clauses by themselves are not […]