Thomas Nelson announced they will withdraw publication of evangelical conservative David Barton‘s THE JEFFERSON LIES: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson after concluding that “there were historical details — matters of fact, not matters of opinion, that were not supported at all.” Listings for the book have been removed from online retailers with a recall of physical copies underway, and the rights will be reverted to the author. But Barton tells The Tennessean that his only contact from the publisher “was an email saying it was canceled,” adding that “it was a complete surprise.’ Published in April […]
Archives for August 2012
People: Random UK Creates Division for Licensing and More
Random House UK has created a division, Random House Enterprises, to pursue “multi-platform business opportunities across TV, licensing and merchandising, gaming and live events.” Former vp of international consumer products at Discovery Communications Jo Edwards has been hired as head of licensing. She will report to group commerical director Nigel Waters. Publicity director at Jonathan Cape and Bodley Head Chloe Johnson-Hill moves over to RHE as manager for events. Humorist/essayist David Rakoff, 47, died Thursday night in Manhattan after a three-year battle with cancer. A frequent contributor to This American Life, Rakoff authored the essay collections FRAUD (2001) DON’T GET […]
Speaking of Stats
We have a few interesting numbers of our own to share with you. Last month saw our highest traffic ever at PublishersMarketplace.com, just shy of 2 million true visitor page views (leaving out all the spiders and bots). Indeed our traffic has been strong all year, up about 18 percent over last year. Then as we started paging back, we saw that in fact, our traffic has consistently grown about 18 percent a year for at least the last five years. As regular readers and visitors know, that’s without any stunts to artificially boost site traffic, like jumping our daily […]
Charting the Slowdown In eBook Growth
Further to yesterday’s reporting of AAP monthly sales data for April, we have updated versions of our standing charts of ebook sales patterns. One clear trend is that the days of doubling or more are over; as the ebook sales base rises, the year-over-year growth is moderating. In fact, over the past few months, that growth rate has dropped dramatically. As this tabulation shows, September 2011 was the last time AAP-monitored ebook sales doubled. The growth rate diminished in October, just in time for the biggest quarter of book sales, and held through the post-Christmas ebook spike in January. But […]
Indigo First Quarter Sales Dip But Loses Less Money
For their fiscal first quarter ending June 30, Indigo reported sales from continuing operations of C$186.5 million, down 1.8 percent from a year ago, with a net loss of C$5.5 million, significantly less than the $12 million the company lost a year ago. The revenue drop was primarily “driven by lower Kobo eReader sales when compared to the strong launch of the Kobo Touch in the same period last year” and by Indigo closing 8 stores over the past year. The narrowed net loss came about thanks to “improvements in net margins and lower operating expenses” and no longer having […]
Harper Reports “Strong” Fourth Quarter, Takes eBook Settlement Charge
News Corp. reported fourth quarter earnings after the close of the market Wednesday. As usual, the release says almost nothing about their book publishing results and does not mention Harper by name, though the newspaper-dominated “publishing” division saw operating income fall almost in half, at $139 million for the quarter compared to $270 million a year ago. The publishing results “reflect a litigation settlement charge related to sales of e-books,” but the report does not disclose the amount. Part of the $131 million drop in publishing income is due to “a $57 million charge related to the costs of the ongoing investigations […]