At Chronicle, Laura Lee Mattingly has been promoted to senior editor, while Sarah Billingsley moves up to senior editor, food & drink. Brendan Coyne has joined the Pennsylvania State University Press as director of sales and marketing. He was formerly associate sales director at Johns Hopkins University Press. Penguin Random House UK group UK sales director Garry Prior is retiring at the end of the year, after 35 years with associated companies. Co-founder and former chief technology officer of The Book Depository Emad Eldeen Elakehal will launch ibiidi.com, a global international bookselling website selling titles in multiple language and focusing […]
Archives for September 2015
New Devices from Nook/Samsung and Kobo
Following Samsung’s release of the Galaxy Tab S2 8-inch tablet, as expected Barnes & Noble has announced their parallel release of a Galaxy Tab S2 NOOK version. As with earlier co-branded tablets, Nook’s $400 device includes an offer for free ebooks and magazines, and in-store at BN stores. Earlier in the week, Kobo announced a refreshed version of their eInk reader, the Touch 2.0, promising “a sleeker design with more internal storage memory and a battery life that lasts up to two months depending on individual usage.” The $90 reader goes on sale next week in the US and Canada, and rolls out elsewhere “later […]
McGraw-Hill Education Said to Hire Underwriters for End-of-Year IPO
Consistent with reports from this spring — and rumors from 2014 — McGraw-Hill Education’s private equity owners Apollo Global Management look to be moving ahead with plans for an IPO. “People familiar with the matter” tell Reuters the company has hired Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley as lead underwriters and “expects to launch the IPO at the end of the year” following back-to-school sales. The market will determine the company’s value, but the leakers continue to assert a range of between $5 billion and $6 billion, including debt — which continues to sound aggressive until proven otherwise. Apollo bought the company in […]
People, Etc.
The National Book Award will present their medal for distinguished contribution to American letters to Don DeLillo at the annual awards ceremony on November 18. NBF executive director Harold Augenbraum says, “Don DeLillo is unquestionably one of the greatest novelists of his generation. He has had an enormous influence on the two generations of writers that followed, and his work will continue to resonate for generations to come.” Executive producer of WNYC’s Radiolab Ellen Horne will move to Audible as an executive producer this fall, along with executive producer of NPR’s Ask Me Another Jesse Baker, who will be senior director, and former […]
A New Approach for iBooks’ Monthly Picks
With their Best Books of September list, Apple’s iBooks Store brings a new format to their monthly selections, picking five books each from “five popular categories”: fiction; mysteries/thrillers; nonfiction; YA; and romance. Their titles for the month are: Purity, Jonathan Franzen Gold Fame Citrus, Claire Vaye Watkins After You, Jojo Moyes Fear of Dying, Erica Jong Did You Ever Have A Family, Bill Clegg The Nature of the Beast, Louise Penny The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra, Vaseem Khan Pretty Girls, Karin Slaughter Trigger Mortis, Anthony Horowitz Mycroft Holmes, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Why Not Me?, Mindy Kaling Hitler’s Art Thief, Susan […]
Then There Were Five (Or More): Penguin Random House Returns to Agency
The one significant factor in Penguin Random House’s US performance not mentioned in yesterday’s half-year report from Bertelsmann was the artificial boost to ebook sales while the house stood alone since mid-April as the only big trade publisher that still allowed significantly discounting on their ebook prices. (Harper returned to full agency in mid-April; HBG on February 1; and Macmillan and Simon & Schuster in early January.) But as of today, September 1, PRH has followed their peers in returning to full agency ebook pricing in the US (except, as required by the court, Apple retains discretion to discount, and competitors […]