The grain of salt we advised on the flawed TechCrunch report of potential interest in Microsoft buying out the digital assets of Nook Media has turned into a veritable salt flat. Another site, Insider Monkey, posted an item early Monday afternoon said to come from “a highly placed source inside Microsoft” denying the likelihood of a deal. Barnes & Noble stock fell 13 percent in about 30 minutes Monday afternoon on very heavy volume. It hit a trough and by 3 PM started to recover some of the losses, off about $2.20 a share or 9.5 percent for the day, […]
Archives for May 2013
The “Big Book” of BEA
With Book Expo America set to convene in New York in a little over two weeks, we can already tell you the undisputed “big book” of the fair: BUZZ BOOKS 2013: Fall/Winter, released today, is our newest free ebook with substantial excerpts from 40 big titles to be featured at BEA and into the big fall season, weighing in at a big 750 virtual pages. It was just a year ago that we began this very successful initiative, giving thousands of publishing people and passionate readers alike their first look at such major debuts as Kevin Powers’ The Yellow Birds, […]
eNews: PBS MediaShift to Publish eBooks; Progress Reports from Boston Globe, Minneapolis Star-Tribune
PBS MediaShift has launched a new line of ebooks with How to Self-Publish Your Book and Your Guide to Cutting the Cord to Cable TV, priced at $3.99 and $2.99, respectively and only available for Kindle and the iBookstore for now (though Nook will follow in due course.) Executive director Mark Glaser told paidContent that MediaShift intends to release 10 to 20 ebooks this year, depending on sales of the launch titles. “This is a test for us and PBS, so we will learn as we go and adjust prices, length, subject matter and more.” Last Friday Poynter looked at the ongoing ebook […]
After Layoffs and A Big Writedown, Cengage Talks Openly About Chapter 11
Cengage continues its slow march to the inevitable restructuring that has loomed for a while, and for the first time management has openly (and casually) talked about bankruptcy reorganization. The main questions now are who will lead that bankruptcy plan, can they organize a pre-packaged plan, and which private equity company will control what’s left? The latest step is driven by Cengage’s third quarter earnings report. In a modest “operational restructuring” they took a $12.7 million charge related to firing an unspecified number of employees. More significantly, the preliminary results of a new strategic plan and revised more realistic expectations […]
People
Doug Pocock has been named managing director of Abrams & Chronicle Books, the UK distribution joint venture, effective May 20. He was most recently a partner in the publishing consultancy The Media Partners, and before then was evp, managing director of Egmont USA. “Doug Pocock is a seasoned and highly respected publishing executive,” said Chronicle Books president Jack Jensen in a statement. “We look forward to his stewardship of our rapidly expanding UK joint venture.” At Morrow/Avon, Erika Tsang has been promoted to editorial director while Amanda Bergeron moves up to editor. Authors Alexandra Ahndoril and Alexander Ahndoril, who write together as […]
Buzz Books 2013 International List
BUZZ BOOKS 2013 will also be released in an international edition for non-U.S. distribution only, and includes excerpts from these 17 titles: Part One: Fiction Adam Langer, The Salinger Contract (Open Road Media) Peter Gethers, Ask Bob (Henry Holt) Dianne Dixon, Book of Someday (Sourcebooks Landmark) Nicola Griffith, Hild (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) Joshilyn Jackson, Someone Else’s Love Story (William Morrow) Deborah McKinlay, That Part Was True (Grand Central Publishing) Chang-rae Lee, On Such a Full Sea (Riverhead) Kim Stanley Robinson, Shaman (Orbit) Part Two: Debut Fiction James Thomson, Lies You Wanted to Hear (Sourcebooks Landmark) Part Three: Nonfiction Larry […]