With Hachette Book Group very much in the news lately, it’s interesting to have a deeper view of the company’s business and forward strategy — and they kindly provided just that at the end of May. No one seems to have taken note of the Lagardere investor day presentation in Paris on May 28 (while we were at BEA), but they likely will following this piece. Though most articles on HBG USA in the context of their standoff with Amazon describes them as the smallest of the Big Five, the company puts itself at No. 4. (They say they have 5.8 […]
Archives for June 2014
People
Simon & Schuster vp, business information and data operations Helene Green died Tuesday after a long illness. She began her publishing career at Macmillan in 1987 and joined S&S’s children’s division, responsible for inventory, in 1994 upon the acquisition of the company (which owned Scribner), after which she moved over to the supply chain division. Green also represented S&S on various AAP and BISG committees. VP, business operations Frank Nunez said: “Helene will be remembered as a consummate colleague: knowledgeable, passionate about the work we do and eager to do a good job, loyal to her staff and a great teacher to […]
Another Amazon Terms Dispute — With DVD Distributor
Amazon is engaged in another dispute over terms that has resulted in the etailer declining to accept pre-orders for popular product. In this case, the standoff is with Warner Home Video, and among the top titles unavailable for DVD pre-order is The Lego Movie, set for June 17 release. The NYT notes, “Amazon started refusing preorders for the Time Warner movies in mid-May. That frustrated some customers, who voiced their displeasure on its forums.” One Amazon customer posted on May 20, “Something weird seems to be going on with Warner Bros. pre-orders. Loads of them are not available anymore, and […]
Appeals Court Upholds Hathi Trust As Fair Use; Rules Authors Guild Has No Standing
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling on Tuesday morning that broadly affirms District Court Judge Harold Baer’s finding in October 2012 that the Hathi Trust Digital Library — created by academic libraries that participated in the Google Books Library Project — qualifies as “fair use” under copyright law. The Appeals Court upheld the two significant uses of the Hathi Trust: to allow full-text word searches across the entire database of over 10 million books, and to allow verified print-disabled patrons affiliated with a Hathi Trust member institution to access full-text versions. (Note that so far, only the […]
Gowda Sells Remaining Books-A-Million Stake
Late Friday Books-A-Million reported to the SEC that it agreed to repurchase the remaining 304,000 common stock shares held by Harsha Gowda at $2.15 a share a day after buying back 655,596 shares for the same per share price. Despite reducing the company’s float by about 6.5 percent, BAMM shares have declined, trading between $2.02 and $2.07 a share. Gowda, who runs BlueShore Global Equity Fund, told us: “I wish Books-a-Million management the best and I see them managing the decline in physical book retail successfully. My sale was primarily to pursue other investments for my Fund.”
People, Etc.
President and director of paperback sales at Penguin Norman Lidofsky will retire at the end of 2014 after more than 32 years with the company. In a staff memo, Penguin Random House president and coo Madeline McIntosh praised Lidofsky’s “sales leadership, book passion, and dedication” and called him “a generous and thoughtful colleague, an inspiring leader, and above all—a consummate salesman working unceasingly in support of Penguin’s books, authors, and publishers.” McIntosh added: “[Lidofsky] has led the way in building the trade paperback program into an industry force… He has helped to keep Penguin Classics vibrant, sustaining its presence as one of […]