Two of the large publishers that announced new multiyear sales agreements with Amazon late last year have resumed their latest version of agency ebook pricing. Simon & Schuster and Macmillan are both selling ebooks under their newest model of the agency model. (Remember that, given the current Federal Court injunction imposed on Apple, none of the original agency publishers can currently restrict Apple’s ability to discount ebooks — and even new agency sales agreements may allow other accounts a measure of price-matching when Apple discounts.) In keeping with prior practice, Amazon now lists most of the ebooks from those houses with the note, “This price […]
Archives for January 2015
Briefs: Saramago Estate to Wylie; THE HUSBAND’S SECRET in Paperback; and More
Once again, a prominent literary estate has switched representation to The Wylie Agency. The estate of Jose Saramago announced the change as of December 30, 2014, saying “this shift to a larger literary agency emerges as a natural step to ensure greater presence” of Saramago’s work. They briefly thanked Nicole Witt at Literary Agency Mertin, Saramago’s longtime agency (first under the late Ray-Gude Mertin). Witt expressed “great surprise” at the “short email” from the estate notifying her of the change. She writes, in part, “When I said goodbye to José Saramago in Lanzarote in June 2010, shortly before he passed away, I […]
People, Etc.
Current Little Brown UK ceo Ursula Mackenzie will relinquish that position on July 1 and take on the role of chairman, working on “special projects” for the unit as well as Hachette UK through the end of 2016, when she will retire from publishing. Little Brown UK publisher David Shelley has been named deputy ceo, and will take over as ceo on July 1. He has joined the Hachette UK board as well. Nathaniel Marunas has been appointed publisher of Quercus US, working locally under the supervision of Little, Brown publisher Reagan Arthur. The Quercus US unit reports in to Jason Bartholomew at […]
Free, and One More Chance to Save
As we noted earlier in the week, in advance of Tuesday’s packed Publishers Launch Kids conference we have a free PDF with background essays on three of the topics to be explored in more depth at the show (including the first part of Play Collective’s data on the ereading habits of children ages 2 to 13). But there won’t be much more that’s free on the way — neither Launch Kids nor the main Digital Book World events will be streamed or podcast; the way find out what’s happening is by joining us at the show. The full program is […]
People, Etc.
At Putnam, Ashley Hewlett has been promoted to senior publicist while Sarah Grimm moves up to associate publicist. Following the sales of Santillana’s trade book business to Penguin Random House, Maria B. Campbell Associates is now the US literary scout for all of the company’s Spanish-language (and Portuguese-language) book divisions: Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial in Spain and Portugal, Companhia das Letras and Objetiva in Brazil. With further hostage developments in Paris following Wednesday’s Charlie Hebdo attacks, Michel Houellebecq has stopped promotion of his novel SUBMISSION (with the exception of a pre-recorded interview that will air on Canal+ Friday night) and has left […]
Authors Guild Drops Further Action in HathiTrust Lawsuit
The Authors Guild’s long-running copyright infringement lawsuit against the has finally reached the end with the announcement that the Guild will no longer pursue any legal action. The news comes after the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed portions of a lower court ruling, finding that the HathiTrust digital library’s full-text search and display of texts to the print-disabled qualified as fair use. (The Guild had criticized that the ruling and said three months ago that it would “announce its next steps shortly.”) Under the new agreement that drops any further re-examination by the lower court, the HathiTrust libraries represent to the Guild that their copying […]