World Book Night announced that special editions of Solomon Northup’s public domain book Twelve Years a Slave will be given free to schools for distribution as part of World Book Night on April 23. Executive director Carl Lennertz notes, “One third of our half million free books each year go into underfunded rural and urban high schools, and when Dover Publications offered to work with us on this, we jumped at the chance.” In other announcements, Vintage announced that the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy has sold 100 million units worldwide. Vintage itself has sold over 45 million units in the […]
Archives for February 2014
Newspaper Book Reviews, Reviewers, and Gender
The latest VIDA statistics assessing gender representation in book reviews continue to draw comment and response. But VIDA’s lens, expanded this year to include more publications, still primarily examines periodicals and journals and overlooks the substantial body of daily and weekly book reviews in large-circulation newspapers. That’s exactly the world we have tracked for years in our Publishers Marketplace Book Reviews database (also shown via our cool Top Reviewers tool), which offers a rich data set for analysis. In examining that data over the past 5 years, there are some interesting findings that may expand on the view that VIDA […]
People, Etc.
Michael Carley will retire from Simon & Schuster on April 22 after more than 34 years with the company. He started at S&S in 1980 as a field sales manager covering the Pacific Northwest, and added Amazon to his coverage in 1997, the first at S&S to do so. Carley was also the first S&S rep to sell directly to Costco. In a statement, evp, sales & marketing Michael Selleck said that Carley “has always been a passionate reader and his enthusiasm and dedication have been integral to the success of countless books. Michael has been a joy to work […]
Quarto Rebrands Publishing Divisions and Forecasts Better 2014
Quarto Group announced a series of changes alongside their full-year 2013 results, including a rebrand of its publishing divisions; a joint venture agreement in Brazil with Grupo Nobel; and the consolidation of their challenged display marketing businesses in Australia and New Zealand, into the single Books & Gifts Direct unit. As part of the company’s ongoing “strategic review” and simplification of their organization, both of their publishing divisions will carry the Quarto name. So the Aurum Publishing Group will now be known as Quarto Publishing Group UK, and the Quayside Publishing Group will go forward as Quarto Publishing Group US. Sydney-based creative studio […]
Barnes & Noble Improves Profit On Lower Sales; Cut 190 Nook Jobs and Promises New Color Device, Higher Ed Tech Launch
Sales for the big holiday third quarter at Barnes & Noble fell 10.3 percent overall to $1.996 billion (down $228 million), but EBITDA improved considerably — on a reduction of Nook losses — to $173 million, compared to just $59 million a year ago, when they first took big inventory losses on unsold Nook devices (of $74 million). In coming attractions, one way or another, in their ever-shifting device strategy they “plan to launch a new Nook color device in early fiscal 2015” (which begins in late April), doing so “in collaboration with a third-party partner.” More broadly, BN says […]
Apple Makes Their Case to the Appeals Court
On Tuesday Apple filed with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals their arguments to overturn Judge Denise Cote’s ruling finding the company guilty of violating the Sherman Act when they entered the ebook market with their agency contracts. The company’s attorneys write: “The district court’s ruling that Apple, in the very act of launching the iPad, inventing the iBooks Store, and entering the e-books market, violated the Sherman Act is a radical departure from modern antitrust law and policy. If allowed to stand, the ruling will stifle innovation, chill competition, and harm consumers. This Court should overturn it. Apple’s entry as an […]