After well over a year of depositions, documents, argument-trading, and settlements with five publishers, the Department of Justice’s trial against Apple on ebook price fixing finally got underway Monday morning at the Federal courthouse in downtown Manhattan (the majority of journalists, yours truly included, witnessed the proceedings in an overflow room where the sound was frustratingly intermittent, and only fixed before the end of the morning recess.) After some lingering pre-trial motions concerning the redaction status of certain documents, DOJ lawyer Lawrence Buterman presented the government’s case against Apple in opening arguments. Most of what he covered was in line with […]
Archives for June 2013
Grumpy Cat Has His Day, But Pig In A Wheelchair Is Next with Three-Book Deal
As previewed last week, Grumpy Cat emerged as one of the biggest celebrity draws at BEA last week, with convention-goers lining up by the Chronicle booth for almost two hours. “Just 15 minutes into the event, the crowd was so anxious to get close to Grumpy Cat that the BEA organizers called for two extra security guards to maintain the peace,” the WSJ blogged. By their account the cat, whose actual name is Tardar Sauce, “seemed unphased” and “managed to sleep through most of her event” (though witnesses told us they thought the cat looked drugged rather than just sleepy/grumpy). […]
Up Next: Comprehensive Marketing, and Publishing Services
With the long stretch of BEA events now over, Publishers Launch Conferences is pairing with Digital Book World on a new event to put on your calendars for September: The Marketing + Publishing Services Conference & Expo This “mini-convention” is actually multiple shows under one roof, targeting at a variety of key publishing functions. The full-day Marketing Conference builds on DBW’s marketing show from 2012 with additional programming expertise Publishers Launch and will be the first event for book marketers that presents a comprehensive strategy for marketing in a digital world. Meanwhile, on the second floor of our space to […]
China Signs Off; Penguin and Random House to Merge In July
China’s antitrust authority has “cleared the planned merger of Penguin Group and Random House without conditions,” the two publishers reported, and they “welcome the Beijing authorities’ decision as an important step toward the combination of their respective publishing companies.” This was the final international approval required for the deal to go through, so “subject to the integration planning, Bertelsmann and Pearson are confident about being able to close the transaction in July 2013.”
What Does Justice Want From Apple?
It is suddenly the obvious question of the moment, as the ebook pricing trial in the United States v. Apple began today at 9:30 — particularly since presiding Judge Denise Cote has already expressed her “tentative view” that “the government will be able to show at trial direct evidence that Apple knowingly participated in and facilitated a conspiracy to raise prices of e-books.” (Even absent that bar, antitrust attorneys indicate the government is the natural favorite in any trial like this one, and particularly so given that all five publisher defendants have already settled.) Assuming for speculative purposes that the […]
June Bookseller Picks
Amazon and Barnes & Noble agree on four titles in their “best books of June” lists, recommending: The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman TransAtlantic, Colum McCann The Last Summer of the Camperdowns, Elizabeth Kelly Revolutionary Summer, Joseph J. Ellis Amazon’s spotlight pick for the month — The Son, by Philipp Meyer — was another title featured in our spring/summer edition of Buzz Books 2013, as was BN June pick The Astronaut Wives Club by Lily Koppel. (So far, an amazing 15 of the 28 books we featured right around Winter Institute have been named to monthly […]