At Writers House, Stephen Barr has been promoted to senior agent. Brian Jud will take over as executive director of the Small Publishers Association of North America (SPAN) on January 1, following the resignation of Brad Flora. Jud is an author, book-marketing consultant, seminar leader, television host and a partner in Premium Book Company. Rachel Burkot has been named assistant […]
Archives for December 2012
New Pew eReading Survey Shows eBook Reading Increases as Print Readership Declines
Pew Research’s latest e-reading survey, released Thursday, added still more context on various trends among those who read electronically in 2012. Of the over 2500 Americans aged 16 or older surveyed between October and November 2012, a little fewer than one-quarter (or 23 percent) reported that they have read an ebook in the past year, […]
Pearson Invests $89.5 Million In Nook Media, After Disappointing Holiday
Nook Media–the entity formed in 2012 that owns Barnes & Noble’s Nook business and their college bookstores–has its second major strategic investor, joining Microsoft: As of December 21 Pearson agreed to invest $89.5 in cash for a 5 percent equity stake. The bookseller paired an announcement about that investment with a preview of holiday sales […]
Shanks to Stay On After Merger
Penguin USA ceo David Shanks has written to clarify the allegation from legal documents in September we referenced yesterday to a plan for him to step down in early 2014, now vowing to stay on as Penguin faces their merger with Random House. “I find the potential for this venture to be so exciting that […]
What to Expect (Or Not)
It’s time for our annual moment of confusion: we would like to stop working entirely until it’s 2013, like a good portion of the publishing world, but the news rarely takes a full vacation (as evidenced by the last few day’s dispatches). So you should expect occasional email service over the next week and a […]
HarperCollins Financials Revealed As Part of News Corp Spinoff Procedure
With News Corp.’s proposed spinoff of its publishing unit, aka New News Corp (the other division will be renamed Fox Group) moving forward, the company filed proxy documents with the SEC late Thursday outlining the scope of the proposed spinoff and revealing financial performance data for HarperCollins, after holding back on numbers ever since the […]