At Macmillan, Dan Schwartz has been promoted to vp, digital product services, adding a variety of responsibilities to his current role managing the strategic and day-to-day operations of the trade ebook group, among them college ebook production and helping to set corporate digital strategy. The company says their ebook group now comprises a more than $100 million business. Workman Publishing has formally unveiled the Workman Speakers Bureau, which former Random House executive Carol Schneider has been building since last May. (Schneider ran the Random House portion of the Random House Speakers Bureau among her responsibilities there.) Workman has enrolled 17 of the house’s authors […]
Archives for May 2012
Sales Rise S&S, As Profit Reflects Legal Costs
CBS reported first quarter earnings after the close of the market on Tuesday, with Simon & Schuster recording strong results: sales rose 14 percent, up $21 million to $176 million. It’s a quarter with traditionally thin margins, but OIBDA rose as well, up $3 million to $10 million, with operating income of $8 million, as gains in content sales were “partially offset by higher costs related to legal matters”–which presumably means the settlement discussions with the Department of Justice and state attorneys general. Since those settlements have not been finalized, there is no larger charge against earnings declared yet for the […]
Judge Dismisses Suit Against Greg Mortenson and Penguin, Calls Claims “Overly Broad” and “Flimsy”
On Monday a federal judge in Montana tossed out a lawsuit filed by four book buyers against Greg Mortenson and Penguin on the grounds that THREE CUPS OF TEA’s alleged fabrications deceived the quartet into believing the book was nonfiction. In dimissing the complaint charging fraud, deceit, racketeering and breach of contract, US district judge Sam Haddon said the lawsuit, which has been pending for more than a year, was based on “imprecise, in part flimsy, and speculative” claims and that the further pursuit of legal action “would be futile.” Haddon was particularly critical of the plaintiffs’ racketeering claims, saying […]
eNews: Warner Bros. Scripts Turned Into eBooks; DemiBooks’ New Children’s Appstore; and More
Warner Bros. announced it would sell four of the movie studio’s classic scripts — CASABLANCA, BEN-HUR, AN AMERICAN IN PARIS, and NORTH BY NORTHWEST — as enhanced ebooks for Kindle, Nook, and iPad. It’s the first part of a large-scale initiative in which they hope to turn hundreds of scripts into ebooks. The WSJ reports each title will retail for $10 and “includes the film’s actual shooting script and rare historical documents from the Warner Bros. archives.” President of Warner Bros. digital distribution Thomas Gewecke told the paper the company “had been looking at a variety of ideas to leverage […]
Is the Barnes & Noble Spinoff Really A Leave Behind?
With yesterday’s headlines about Microsoft’s investment in a newly-created subsidiary of Barnes & Noble absorbed, there are a lot of details–and implications–to dive into. While we underscored in yesterday’s account that Microsoft was both paying out revenue share advances of $60 million a year and contributing $25 million a year towards acquiring content around the world in addition to their $300 million equity investment, we didn’t total it up for you: the revenue share payments are promised for three years, and the content payments are pledged for five years, totaling $305 million in committments. (At the same time, it appears […]
People, Etc.
Chantal Restivo- Alessi has joined HarperCollins as chief digital officer, reporting to Brian Murray, and filling the position vacated by Charlie Redmayne when he joined Pottermore. She will also sit on the company’s executive committee. In her new role, Restivo-Alessi, most recently head of media corporate finance at ING Bank in London, will be responsible for leading the overall global digital strategy for the company, manage the commercial relationships with existing and new digital partners, and grow the digital revenues worldwide, working closely with all the divisions of the company worldwide. Leslie Hulse, svp digital business development, will report to […]