BEA is just a few hours old — and the show floor won’t even open until Tuesday — but for now some of the biggest announcements are in the deals department. Random House Publishing Group has acquired Carly Simon‘s autobiography, which will cover “the discovery of her life-altering stammer, her meteoric rise and unparalleled career in music, and her loves, including her marriage to James Taylor, with Simon saying “after years of keeping journals and writing lyrics for my tunes, I have developed a strong interest in seeing how my life might just string together in a longer form.” In […]
Archives for June 2012
People, Etc.
Bertelsmann has appointed Marcel Reichart to the newly-created position of evp, digital business development and partnerships, reporting to Thomas Hesse, effective October 1. Reichart is currently managing director of DLD & Ventures at Hubert Burda Media. Danielle Lynn has joined Rodale Books as publicity manager. She was most recently a senior publicist at Simon & Schuster. Kirsten Hall has been promoted to managing agent at Bright Group International, the company’s first full-time agent based in the US. Effective immediately, PGW will handle print and digital distribution for Entangled Publishing, Cameron + Company (as well as its Roundtree Books imprint) and Yosemite […]
Print Sales Rise 13.4 Percent At Reporting Indie Stores; ABA Gains Members for Third Year
As Book Expo America opens (for educational programming today, and floor exhibitions tomorrow), the American Booksellers Association reports to the AP that their membership rose again–adding 55 members, now totaling 1,567, up 3.6 percent from last year. That is the third consecutive gain for the organization; this time a year ago, the ABA reported adding 102 members, following their merger with the Association of Booksellers for Children. (In 2010 they added 9 members–gains, while always good, do not necessarily reflect a change in the entire store landscape, since not all independent bookstores are members of the national organization.) The current […]
Amazon Is Awarded Patent from 2008 Covering Digital Gifts
Amazon continues to display their prowess in acquiring patents for digital business processes. Back in 2008 the company thought to apply for protection for a method of giving digital presents–including ebooks, along with other digital entertainment products. As GeekWire reports, that patent was officially granted this Tuesday. The site notes that the original patent includes the possibility that a gift-giver could forestall payment until the recipient has actually claimed their digital gift though as a matter of practice, customers currently pay for Kindle gifts on purchase.
Regal to Launch Zola Books Platform at BEA
Among the start-ups debuting in a private industry beta at next week’s BEA is former literary agent Joe Regal’s Zola Books, an ambitious ebook retailer that aims to innovate in multiple ways, aspiring to improve book discovery, share data with authors and publishers, empower book “curators” of all kinds to recommend titles (and get compensated), move forward the state of the art of how an HTML5 reader can work across multiple devices, and make “social reading” more natural and less obtrusive. A separate component, launching when Zola Books formally opens for business (which will not occur until after the DOJ […]
Jeff Kinney’s WIMPY KID #7 Now Has A Title, First Printing of 6.5 Million
Two months after announcing a November 13 release date in seven countries for the seventh installment of Jeff Kinney’s DIARY OF A WIMPY KID series, Abrams said Thursday evening the book will be titled DIARY OF A WIMPY KID: THE THIRD WHEEL and revealed the book’s cover. Amulet will issue a 6.5 million first printing, up from the 6 million opening print run for the sixth book in the series published last year. That book sold more than one million copies in its opening week, up 25 percent on the previous series entry.