UK trade group the Publishers Association issued “an eight point plan for growth” in book and journal publishing with recommendations for the government. The one drawing the most attention is a very polite, British request to consider whether having one company dominate ebookselling and online bookselling is a good idea. Amazon is not mentioned by name, and PA chief executive Richard Mollet insists to the FT, “This is a genuine appeal for information. It would be disappointing if this were interpreted as an act of aggression” against that unnamed dominant company. The document asserts that “the book retail market in […]
Archives for September 2014
Amazon Refreshes Kindle eReaders and Tablets, Adding Kids Tablet
After some leaks at their international stores, on Wednesday evening Amazon announced new ereaders and tablets, all set to ship in October. The new basic Kindle is thinner, adds a touchscreen, and sells for $79, with ads. (That’s $10 more than the previous basic model, or 15 percent higher. So the people who fight to control pricing because “e-books can and should be less expensive” are charging more for their least expensive device to read those ebooks.) The newest addition, tipped earlier, is the Kindle Voyage, “the thinnest device we’ve ever built” (7.6 mm thick), weighing 6.4 ounces, with a high-resolution display (300 pixels per inch) and improved front […]
National Book Award Fiction Longlist, and More Awards
The National Book Awards closed out their week of longlists with its ten-book fiction list. Originally slated for announcement on Thursday at 8 AM, the list was first leaked Wednesday evening after 7 PM by the Huffington Post, after which it was posted by the NYT and on the National Book website. The full list: Rabih Alameddine, An Unnecessary Woman (Grove Press) Molly Antopol, The UnAmericans (Norton) John Darnielle, Wolf in White Van (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See (Scribner) Phil Klay, Redeployment (The Penguin Press) Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven (Knopf) Elizabeth […]
People, Etc.
Lisa Gallagher will join DeFiore and Company on November 3, after five years as an agent at Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. In the Penguin Random House sales department, Lauren Monaco has the new assignment of vp, director of sales, paperback and Berkley/NAL, Penguin Publishing Group. Hank Cochrane serves as vp, director of sales development, trade paperback & Berkley/NAL. Jeff Weber will run the newly unified Penguin Random House adult online & digital sales team, as vp, director, online & digital sales. Kent Anderson is promoted to director, online & digital sales, Penguin Publishing Group and Michael Rotondo is promoted to director, online & digital sales, Random House adult. With the […]
iOS8 Launch Gives Apple A Second Bite At Building iBooks
The new iPhones become available on Friday, but it is today’s release of Apple’s iOS 8 (at 10 am Pacific Time) that may present the company’s biggest opportunity since the debut of iBooks in 2010 to build a meaningful market presence for their ebookstores. As originally disclosed in June, for the first time the iBooks app will be bundled into the iOS, pre-installed along with new Health, Tips and Podcast apps as well. (In the past users had to elect to download the iBooks app separately. As with the U2 song, there are already at least some complaints from users who […]
Amazon Pays Over $500K to Kindle “All-Stars”
As we first discussed in late July, Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited subscription program — which relies heavily on the 500,000-plus self-published books that are exclusive to Kindle — has put additional scrutiny on how much the retailer will pay those authors to retain their loyalty as direct sales are converted into subscriber reads. On Monday, Amazon charged their gatekeeper-free environment by announcing more than $500,000 in bonus payments for August to a newly-ordained set of “KDP Select All-Stars.” The Kindle one-percenters — or rather, the top two one-thousandths of a percent — can receive bonuses of up to $25,000 each, on […]