Simon & Schuster reported flat sales of $189 million for the second quarter — which represents a bit of forward movement, after sales had declined modestly in each of the previous three quarters. As usual, parent company CBS commented that “continued growth in digital book sales was offset by lower print book sales.” OIBDA was $21 million, “back to normal” in comparison to last year’s $9 million, which reflected some of the settlement of the ebook pricing case, and helped “as the more profitable digital book sales continued to grow.” Total digital revenues (including audio) were 29 percent for the […]
Archives for July 2013
The “Declaration of War” Was Redacted
Shelf Awareness has quietly posted an online amendment to their Saturday dispatch titled “Amazon’s ‘Declaration of War.'” By later that morning, when the publication sent out a press release to the media, they had learned that Amazon’s price cuts were in response to Overstock.com’s Thursday press release promising to price books 10 percent lower than Amazon. The online story was revised to remove the inflammatory headline and the quote from which it was taken, but these changes were not flagged in that media alert. “In our eagerness to get out the updated version, we neglected to add a line that […]
Forthcoming: Malala’s Cover, Obama’s Interview
Little, Brown has released the cover for I AM MALALA: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot By the Taliban, the memoir from Malala Yousafzai (and Christina Lamb) that they will publish on October 8. Some time today Amazon is expected to publish a free Kindle Singles Interview ebook with their editor David Blum speaking to President Barack Obama following his Tuesday appearance at the etailer’s Chattanooga warehouse.
Legal: Rowling Sued Leakers and Wins “Substantial Damages”; Klinger Moves For Summary Judgment Against Conan Doyle Estate
Not only was JK Rowling “very angry” with the attorney Chris Gossage at Russells, who leaked her secret writing identity, but she apparently sued both Gossage and his wife’s best friend Judith Callegari, whose ill-considered tweet unmasked “Robert Galbraith.” A statement read by Rowling’s new attorney in a UK High Court indicated she “was angry and distressed that her confidences had been betrayed and this was very much aggravated by repeated speculation that the leak had, in fact, been a carefully co-ordinated publicity stunt by her, her agent and her publishers designed to increase sales.” Plus, “The claimant has been […]
Sales Fall Again At Harlequin, As Higher Digital Royalties Bring Down Profits
Harlequin’s parent company Torstar reported second quarter results Wednesday morning. The book publishing unit had sales of $99.5 million (CA), down by $7.5 million. EBITDA was down $7.6 million in the quarter at $11.5 million, which Torstar attributed to “a combination of lower revenues, higher author royalties for digital sales and less favorable adjustments to prior year returns provisions partially offset by lower costs and savings from restructuring initiative.” The unit also took another $1 million charge — half for staff reductions as part of their ongoing restructuring, and half for “other charges.” As in the past, the 7 percent […]
Miller’s New Division Gets A Name
The new nonfiction division at Macmillan that Bob Miller is building and running has a name: Flatiron Books. He notes, “It’s a name that carries a lot of history, both for Macmillan and for New York City.” Former group publisher at Workman (and before that founding publisher at Hyperion and then Harper Studio), Miller started at Macmillan on July 8. He announced his first three acquisitions at the same time, for publication beginning in 2015. (All three are noted in Deals.)