Amazon launched a Kindle store in Australia, which lets people there buy in local currency instead of purchasing through the US Kindle store and is said to more prominently feature local authors and publishers. Multiple Amazon devices are now for sale in Australia in local currency as well, and retailers Big W (owned by Woolworth’s) and Dick Smith will carry the Kindle Fire tablets starting in December. Australian KDP authors can now get paid faster and more efficiently in local currency as well. (Previously they were paid by paper checks sent from the US, experiencing a time delay and often […]
Archives for November 2013
Widespread Layoffs At Follett’s College Bookstores
On Friday, college bookstore operator Follett Higher Education Group announced widespread layoffs across their stores, eliminating 570 full-time positions. The memo from svp retail operations Bob Scholl was posted on a web site featuring comments from anonymous employees. The company is converting those full-time jobs into more flexible part-time positions, which the company strains to position as providing a better experience in stores for customers. According to the post, Scholl wrote: “Managers across many of our stores took a series of difficult actions tied to an important Follett initiative…. In order to deliver the hassle-free shopping experience that our customers expect, […]
People, Etc.
Giles Spackman will join Oxford University Press next month as group finance director. Previously he was senior finance director, global business organization, at Google. At Other Press, Robert Wicks has been promoted to publicist and Charlotte Kelly moves up to associate publicist. Dylan Hillhouse has joined HarperCollins Christian as vp, marketing for the Bible Group. Previously he worked at Mardel Christian Stores, responsible for oversight of the company’s Bible merchandising program. Author of the Arkady Renko novels Martin Cruz Smith revealed to the NYT that he has been suffering from Parkinson’s disease for the past 18 years, and that his […]
M&A: Kno At One End, IMG At The Other
Following Friday’s modest announcement of Intel‘s takeover of educational textbook start-up Kno, Om Malik reports “well placed sources who were in the know told us that the company sold for $15 million with some retention bonuses for the employees.” This after raising roughly $75 million in equity and another $20 million in debt. He adds that “earlier this year, the company tried and failed to cut a deal with CourseSmart….In order for the two companies to work together, Kno had to take on all of CourseSmart’s liabilities and at the same time honor its contractual obligations. That deal, which was […]
Sales Rise At HBG US, But Decline Across Lagardere Publishing
At Lagardere, sales at the book publishing division fell 46 million euros in the third quarter, down 7.4 percent overall (and 4.1 percent on a currency neutral, like-for-like business). Results for their international portfolio were quite mixed. Sales at HBG USA were up 11 percent, “particularly with the success of Nicholas Sparks’ The Longest Ride.” But even with the second two volumes of the Fifty Shades trilogy and Dan Brown’s Inferno, their big French division suffered large drops in both “general literature” and education. The education segment remained weak in Spain as well, were sales declined modestly. The UK group […]
Tim Ferriss Starts Audiobook Publisher, Eyes eBook Rights
Author Tim Ferriss announced on his blog that he has started an audiobook publishing venture, Tim Ferriss Publishing, under the promotional banner of the Tim Ferriss Book Club. Targeting men ages 20 to 40, and inspired in part by Oprah Winfrey, Ferriss writes, “For the last several months, I’ve been quietly buying audiobook and e-book rights to books that have changed my life, and producing audiobooks in professional studios.” Additionally, he says that ever since college he has “fantasized about somehow driving fantastic but under-appreciated books into the limelight.” The first release is a new audiobook of Rolf Potts’ VAGABONDING: An […]