HarperCollins Italia has acquired 20lines, a community that allows users to write, read and share short-format stories via a smartphone app. Available in seven languages, the app is said to feature 40,000 authors and 15,000 new pieces of content published every month. Harper’s chief digital officer, evp international Chantal Restivo-Alessi says in the announcement, “20lines has created a tremendous platform with a passionate community of readers and writers in the same markets where HarperCollins maintains a global footprint. We look forward to engaging with its users and exploring short-form content.” Separately, Penguin Random House India announced a co-publishing partnership for local language translation with Manjul Publishing House. […]
Archives for February 2016
People: Harper Lee Dies, and More
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Nelle Harper Lee has died at age 89, the Alabama Media Group reported Friday morning, citing confirmation from “multiple sources in her hometown of Monroeville.” HarperCollins confirmed her passing to the NYT, which has a lengthy obituary by William Grimes. Yale University Press editor-at-large and former Los Angeles Times Book Review editor Steve Wasserman will join Heyday Books as publisher and executive director on July 1, relocating to Berkeley, CA. He succeeds founder Malcolm Margolin, who retired at the end of last year. In the intervening period Heyday’s editorial director, Gayle Wattawa, will act as interim publisher, and director […]
New Options for Opening Day
As we have been reviewing, the main Digital Book World agenda (March 8 and 9) is packed with straight-from-the-headlines keynoters and strategic panels, but we also have our biggest introductory “Day Zero” programming on March 7 as well. And now there are registration options for the time-challenged to buy tickets to Day Zero alone (or Day Zero plus DBW Day One packages). When we first started Launch Kids five years ago it wasn’t only the first digital show focused on children’s publishing, it was the first US show devoted to children’s publishing professionals of any kind. Just like the main […]
People, Etc.
Cliff Guren is leaving Bluefire, where he was vp, business development, to relaunch his consulting business Syntopical. Bluefire founder and ceo Micah Bowers said in the announcement: “Over the past five years I have had the pleasure of working with Cliff as we’ve successfully grown our software licensing business…. Cliff has done a fabulous job for us and we hope to find opportunities to work together in the years to come.” Coming soon from Bluefire is their Cloudshelf family of EPUB 3 reader applications and distribution services that will enable businesses and institutions to “deploy digital private libraries and subscription services to their constituent […]
Headlines and Headliners
Next month’s Digital Book World — March 8 and 9 — will feature many current headline-making stories on the main stage. As the tech world wrestles with “The Elephant in the Valley” survey on bias against women (an issue that will carryover to SXSW later in March), we’ll have a panel on Women at the Intersection of Publishing, Finance and Tech with Sourcebooks ceo Dominique Raccah, NetGalley president Susan Ruszala, entrepreneur and banker Joanna Herman, Penguin digital product manager Katherine McCahill, and consultant and journalist Charlotte Abbott. Plus we have Mary Ann Naples — just hired as Disney Book Group publisher — giving one of the Transformation […]
Supreme Court Postpones February 19 Conference; Appeals Court Affirms $450m Apple Settlement; Docs from the IRS Amazon Case
The Supreme Court has postponed its February 19 conference, when they were scheduled to consider Apple’s request to hear an appeal of the ebook antitrust case, as that day will be taken up by a ceremony for the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who died last weekend. The court has also postponed its regularly scheduled orders for Monday, February 22. Separately, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the proposed settlement between Apple and the Department of Justice that could award as much as $400 million to ebook customers affected by the price-fixing lawsuit. The appeal, brought on behalf of plaintiff […]