BUZZ BOOKS 2013: Fall/Winter includes excerpts from: Part One: Fiction Jonathan Lethem, Dissident Gardens (Random House) Peter Gethers, Ask Bob (Henry Holt) Bob Shacochis, The Woman Who Lost Her Soul (Atlantic Monthly Press) Diane Chamberlain, Necessary Lies (St. Martin’s Press) Carla Norton, Edge Of Normal (Minotaur Books) Pierre Lemaitre, Alex (MacLehose Press) Dianne Dixon, Book of Someday (Sourcebooks Landmark) Chang-rae Lee, On Such a Full Sea (Riverhead) Kim Stanley Robinson, Shaman (Orbit) Wally Lamb, We Are Water (HarperCollins) Amy Tan, The Valley of Amazement (Ecco) James Franco, Actors Anonymous: A Novel (New Harvest) Adam Langer, The Salinger Contract (Open Road Media) […]
Archives for May 2013
Acquisitions Help HMH Trade
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt reported results for the first quarter of 2013, with the trade unit continuing the upswing from the end of 2012, driven by the acquisition of the Wiley culinary titles “as well as general interest and young readers titles.” HMH Trade sales of $39.8 million were up 25 percent compared to $31.9 million a year, and EBITDA nearly doubled to $6.7 million. (The unit records a high margin in part because HMH accounts separately for “certain general overhead costs not fully allocated to the business units such as legal, accounting, treasury, human resources and C-suite functions” in a […]
People
Quirk Books has promoted Brett Cohen to president and Jason Rekulak as publisher, effective immediately. Rekulak has been at the company 13 years, most recently as editor-in-chief, while Cohen has been at Quirk for 12 years. In addition, David Borgenicht will assume the role of owner/CEO of Quirk Productions (the parent company of Quirk Books), with a focus on development partnerships in film, television, and digital media. Borgenicht said about the double promotion: “Individually, Jason and Brett have brought their passion, ingenuity, and leadership to Quirk. Together, they have been the key players behind our ongoing growth and success. Jason […]
Apple Wins One From Judge Cote
The ebook pricing case against Apple does not go before US District Court Judge Denise Cote until June 3, but the computer giant has just won another case presented to the same judge. Cote granted summary judgment in Apple’s favor in a trademark case brought by Brick Tower Press over the use of iBooks. The publisher had purchased the assets of Byron Preiss Visual Publications and Preiss’s iPicturebooks, which had published in the early days of commercial ebooks under the iBooks brand. But Judge Cote said Brick Tower’s only rights were in the original logo design, which pair the word […]
People
Ellen V. LiBretto, 66, passed away May 4, after a brief illness. She was a library marketing manager for Ballantine, where she worked with such authors as Ray Bradbury, Elizabeth Berg, Anne Perry, and Colin Powell, and later consulted on library marketing for several independent publishers. Prior to joining Ballantine, LiBretto held managerial positions in New York City libraries. She was also the author of books including High/Low Handbook: Best Books and Web Sites for Reluctant Teen Readers. Among those let go from the New York Daily News in the newspaper’s newest round of layoffs was editorial writer Alexander Nazaryan, also editor of […]
Higher Price Bands Make More Money for Self-Published Authors
Smashwords has published some findings derived analyzing the recent 11 months of sales (thrugh March 31) for 120,000 ebooks distributed by the company. Those sales represent $12 million in net receipts for authors and publishers (after Smashwords’ and retailers’ commissions; if you like math, you’ll find that means Smashwords collected about $2.2 million in distribution fees during that period). As usual, some of the prose is happy talk about the wonders of self-publishing — even though the first graph proves that a very small number of titles account for the vast amount of sales. (Their No. 1 selling title outsold […]