One of the stranger cases of government censorship is back in the news, as Army Reserve Lt. Colonel Anthony Shaffer has been granted standing to sue the Defense Intelligence Agency in an effort to publish an unredacted version of his 2010 book OPERATION DARK HEART. The judge correctly recognized that Shaffer did not sell all of his rights to his publisher (as the government argued), he licensed a limited basket of rights: “Mr. Shaffer wrote and wants to publish his complete book as originally approved by the Army. There is no doubt that the Defendant Agencies are preventing him from […]
Archives for November 2012
Milestones, Missed
Like many of you we’re still working on getting back to normal after the storm. Along the way we missed taking note of a variety of interesting milestones. Most importantly, we missed our very own anniversary, marking 11 lucky years of PublishersMarketplace.com. As members may recall, we often try to schedule a technological gift or two in alignment with our birthday. We have a big one on the way this year, which will truly offer “something for everyone,” but storm delays have bumped the unveiling to next month. (There are some other surprises in the works for early next year, […]
Trade Publishing Rebounds at Lagardere; Bertelsmann Gains on Subdued Outlook
After a weak second quarter, trade publishing sales rebounded as expected for Lagardere Publishing, with revenues of 626 million euros for third quarter. That’s a 4.1 percent gain over sales of 601 million euros a year ago, when the company had a particular weak third quarter; sales are still below the same period from 2010, and only gained one-tenth of a percent after the effects of currency exchange. Results were boosted by the release of JK Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy right before the end of the quarter, raising trade sales by 7.3 percent in the US, 17 percent in the […]
UK Committee Aims to Embarrass Amazon and Google for Avoiding UK Taxes
The British Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee staged a nice bit of theater Monday, designed to embarrass large multinationals that conduct significant business in the UK while paying little or no income tax–but in the end the government may simply embarrass itself. Testimony was elicited from officials from Google, Starbucks and Amazon, though it’s not clear that the committee has the power to compel these companies to say anything other than what they have already stated publicly. Amazon’s Brussels-based director of public policy Andrew Cecil declined to disclose their UK sales multiple times, saying “We have not disclosed those figures ever publicly.” By all […]
Barnes & Noble Picks 2012 Favorites, Too
Barnes & Noble also posted their lists of favorite books of the year, highlighting 146 books in all across four categories (they just haven’t sent out a press release about it yet, so they have gotten less attention for their lists than Amazon). To be roughly equal with our Amazon list, here are their first 15 picks for both fiction and nonfiction: Fiction Winter of the World, Ken Follett Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn The Light Between Oceans, M.L. Stedman Shadow of Night, Deborah Harkness Defending Jacob, William Landay This Is How You Lose Her, Junot Díaz The Wind through the […]
Amazon Editors Pick Erdrich’s Novel As Best Book of the Year
Amazon has posted their “best books of the year store,” with lists of favorite titles across 23 categories–plus they have named their Top 100 editors’ picks for 2012, selecting Louise Erdrich’s The Round House as their “book of the year.” (The top 100 lists are their editorial selections; the category-based lists blend editors’ favorites and sales history). Here are their editors’ top 25 books: 1. The Round House, by Louise Erdrich 2. The Yellow Birds: A Novel, by Kevin Powers 3. Gone Girl: A Novel, by Gillian Flynn 4. The End of Your Life Book Club, by Will Schwalbe 5. […]