Google is rolling out an expansion of their education initiative (Google Play for Education) in the K-12 market with a number of announcements and new partnerships, timed in conjunction with the Florida Education and Technology Conference (FETC). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will “provide access to a broad range” their K-12 education content to Google’s content store, and Google’s blog indicates the Education store will also offer “classic literature” from publishers including Penguin Random House and HarperCollins. The “affordable access model” makes that content available for 60-, 180-, or 360-day periods, and “provides educators with the flexibility to regularly access updated versions, change […]
Archives for January 2014
iPads and Chromebooks In Schools; Scribd Hosts Kindle Fire App After Failing to Get It Listed By Amazon
In Apple’s investor conference call on Monday afternoon, cfo Peter Oppenheimer celebrated stats for iPad adoption and iBooks use in K-12 schools: “To-date, U.S. education institutions have purchased over 7 million iPads. In fact, we’ve sold over 750,000 iPads to K-12 schools in the State of Texas alone…. We have expended the availability of iBook textbook from four countries to over 50 countries, so that students and teachers around the world can experience the power of what a textbook can be. We continue to add new titles from key education publishers like Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press. “In […]
People, Etc.: LMQ to Manage Skolnick Back Office, William Lynch Gets A Job
Lippincott Massie McQuilkin announced that they will manage all back-office operations of the Irene Skolnick Literary Agency. LMQ has been selling and managing foreign rights for Skolnick’s authors since 2010. Skolnick says in the announcement, “I am delighted to be moving the agency to the offices of my friends at LMQ, where I will be able to focus my energies on the parts of the job I love most — finding and nurturing literary talent.” Rob McQuilkin notes they “feel honored that Irene is entrusting us with an agency she has so carefully and lovingly built over the past twenty years.” […]
Penguin Random House Announces Group Sales Heads In Both US and UK
Penguin Random House announced “new cross-company senior sales leadership positions” in the US, in order “to enhance and strengthen” the existing sales teams. President and coo Madeline McIntosh emphasized that each of the existing sales teams will “continue as separate and distinct entities” and wrote to employees that the “shared goal will be to grow our sales by developing and executing marketplace strategies in collaboration with our publishing teams that serve our books, the company in totality, and our diverse account base.” Earlier in the day, PRH UK also announced new sales and digital/consumer insight leadership positions (see below). Spokesperson […]
A New Children’s Subscription
There is a new entrant in field offering ebook subscriptions for kids, Epic!, which targets kids 12 and under with an app that offers unlimited reading for $9.99 a month (starting with a one-month free trial). They stream the books rather than download them, and the company says participating publishers include Simon & Schuster, Open Road, Lerner, Kids Can Press and others providing “thousands” of titles. Sample screens show books including Olivia; Click, Clack, Moo; and Cloudy with A Chance of Meatballs. The company says it has raised $1.4 million in seed funding from Menlo Ventures, Webb Investment Network, Innovation Endeavors, Maven Ventures, Morado […]
People: Kirshbaum to Join Waxman Leavell, and More
Larry Kirshbaum will join the Waxman Leavell Literary Agency as a senior agent starting February 24, the WSJ reported. Scott Waxman says, “He’ll be an independent agent building his own list like every agent does. I’ve always admired Larry and our team is extremely fortunate to have him as a colleague.” Kirshbaum was an agent for his own firm, LJK Literary Management, between 2005 and mid-2011. (His former colleagues at that agency reconstituted as the Einstein Thompson Agency when Kirshbaum joined Amazon Publishing in 2011.) Macmillan vp, director of international sales Judith Sisko will retire after this year’s London Book […]