Leading literary agency for Christian and inspirational books Alive Communications has announced a separate “sister” epublishing enterprise, Bondfire Books. In the vein of Diversion Books (Scott Waxman), Bedford Square Books (Ed Victor), Paperless Publishing (Objective Entertainment), and Rosetta Books (Arthur Klebanoff), Bondfire is a standalone epublishing company. Following the model of other epublishing start-ups, founder Rick Christian says in the announcement they are paying “a 50 percent net royalty” and “five-year renewable terms.” (Other formal enterprises involving literary agencies include Pan Macmillan’s Bello in the UK, a revival line which launched in partnership with Curtis Brown UK, and the back-in-print […]
Archives for May 2012
Books-A-Million Announces Formation of Special Board Committee for Buyout As Shareholder Sues
Books-A-Million formally announced the creation of a special committee of independent directors that will evaluate and make a recommendation regarding the Anderson family’s bid to take the company private. The committee, comprising Albert C. Johnson and J. Barry Mason, has retained King & Spalding as its legal counsel and is in the process of retaining financial advisors. In the same statement, BAMM’s board of directors again cautioned shareholders and other interested parties that the board “has only recently received the proposal and no decisions have been made…. There can be no assurance that any definitive offer will be made or […]
People, Etc.
Jon Thurber, who has been books editor at the Los Angeles Times since 2010, his latest posting in over 40 years at the newspaper, is leaving “at the beginning of the summer.” The announcement does not name a replacement for position. Kathy Davis has joined Harlequin as acquisitions editor, supporting the newly acquired Heartsong Presents program. Peter Collingridge is the latest well-known epublishing recruit for Safari Books Online, where he will serve as vp of product development. He will work out of London initially, but will relocate to the San Francisco Bay area this summer. Laura Dawson will join Bowker on […]
Pocket Star Relaunches as Dedicated eBook Imprint
Pocket Books will relaunch its Pocket Star mass market paperback line as a dedicated ebook imprint, continuing to feature bestselling and debut authors in women’s fiction, romance, thrillers, urban fantasy, and mystery. Executive editor at Pocket Lauren McKenna will oversee all content for Pocket Star as editorial director. The move comes after Pocket published Kresley Cole’s novella WARLORD WANTS FOREVER as an ebook, selling 60,000 copies. The relaunched imprint will draw from its spring and summer list of titles by V.C. Andrews, Nathan Dodge, Cindy Gerard, Laura Griffin, Sabrina Jeffries, Carrie Lofty, and Michael R. Underwood, among others, and Pocket […]
eNews: Low Estimates for Q1 Amazon and BN Tablets; Diesel eBooks for Miles; Glenn Beck’s eSerial and The Missing Metadata
IDC is one of the monitoring companies that publishes quarterly estimates of shipments of tablets and ereaders from Asian manufacturers. Usually their updates don’t cause a big stir, but this time around their estimates for the first quarter of 2012 fit the narrative of the moment: supply of Amazon’s Kindle Fire dwindled sharply. After shipping an estimated 4.8 million units in the holiday quarter, IDC puts the first quarter Fire number at 700,000 units. To be fair, it was a light quarter for Barnes & Noble‘s tablets as well, reflecting a dropoff in the reader’s tablet market (and a corresponding […]
People: Kendall to Lead Mulholland
Joshua Kendall will join Little, Brown on May 29 as the new editorial director of their Mulholland Books suspense fiction imprint, reporting to Judy Clain. Previously Kendall was senior editor at Viking/Penguin, and fills the slot vacated by John Schoenfelder, who left to work for film producer Scott Rudin. At Open Road, Allison Underwood has been promoted to senior marketing manager and Lara Selavka moves up to associate interactive producer. In addition, Iris Blasi joins as marketing manager, reporting to Underwood. She was most recently digital media manager with Hilsinger-Mendelson East. Ingram has relaunched their online search and order platform […]