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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]