At a status conference Friday afternoon in federal court Judge Denise Cote set a trial date of June 3, 2013 for the DOJ’s ebook price fixing lawsuit against remaining plaintiffs Apple, Penguin, and Macmillan. And as widely noted already, June 3 also marks the beginning of next year’s Book Expo conference; it’s not clear as to whether Judge Cote chose the date by design. What is clear is that Judge Cote wants the case to move swiftly, since the date she chose is more than three months ahead of the September 30, 2013 date proposed by the DOJ. “Several parties, […]
Archives for June 2012
New Pew Internet Report Shows Many Americans Don’t Even Know Libraries Offer eBook Lending
Following up on their April report about the overall ebook market in the US, and just in time for ALA, on Friday Pew Internet released a new survey pertaining solely to ebook usage in libraries, surveying 2,986 Americans ages 16 and older at various points between November 2011 and February 2012, with additional qualitative material drawn from a May 2012 survey of over 6500 respondents. 12 percent of ebook readers surveyed by Pew said they borrowed at least one ebook from the library in the past year, with book borrowers also saying they read an average (the mean number) of […]
Court Approves HMH Restructuring Plan, So Long As Case Moves Out of New York
At a hearing Thursday morning in federal bankruptcy court Judge Robert Gerber approved Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s restructuring plan to exit the pre-packaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy filed on May 21, Dow Jones reports. The plan will wipe out more than $3 billion in remaining debt left over from Riverdeep’s heavily leveraged merger of Houghton Mifflin and Harcourt, allow Citibank’s $500 million loan to serve as the company’s exit financing, and leave HMH with approximately $110 million in net debt and about $150 million of cash on hand. HMH expects to pay down its loan debt by 2017. While almost all objections […]
People, Etc.
At Perseus, Scott Edinburgh joins as director, corporate strategy and business development, reporting to Clare Peeters. Previously he was manager, global strategy and corporate development at the InterContinental Hotels Group. In addition, Timothy Cheng has been named special sales manager, having most recently been special sales manager for online, mail order, national specialty accounts at Sterling. Christine Schillig has resigned as executive editor at Andrews McMeel Publishing as of June 29 and can be reached at christineschillig@gmail.com. She has been with the company for seventeen years, and will continue as editor-at-large for selected projects. Claire Daniel has been named digital […]
eNews: Kobo Touch Available in Japan Next Month; Callaway’s HAPPY New Venture is A Lifestyle App; and More
The Kobo Touch will be available for sale in Japan as soon as July, according to a report from the Asahi Shimbun. Rakuten ceo and chairman Hiroshi Mikitani said the company plans to price the Kobo Touch reader at around 10,000 yen ($126) or cheaper, with plans to sell 50,000 ebook titles by the end of the year. “As a Japanese company, we cannot lose (to overseas rivals),” Mikitani told the paper. “With Kobo devices, we will be able to export Japanese content. The Japanese publishing industry will become a huge content industry.” Further details will be announced at a […]
Partnering With 3M, Penguin To Make New eBooks Available Again at NYPL and BPL In One-Year Pilot Program
More than four months after pulling frontlist digital titles from libraries, Penguin will make them available again in August at the New York Public Library and the Brooklyn Public Library in a one-year pilot program with renewable terms. And after parting ways with OverDrive, Penguin will work with 3M on this program which, if successful, could be rolled out to libraries across the country. 3M signed an agreement with the two libraries only this past Monday. Under the terms of the new program, the NYPL and BPL will be able to lend more than 15,000 Penguin frontlist titles with a […]