Bay-area bookstore chain Books Inc. will close their location in San Francisco’s Castro in June as the lease expires, after 21 years there. CEO Michael Tucker tells Hoodline, “it wasn’t financially feasible for the company to re-up for another five year lease.” He notes, “It’s been a tough slog because sales have continued to trail off. When the store continues to be in the red and then it continues to go down and occupancy costs go up, and everything else in the city continues to go up, it starts going in the wrong direction.” On the positive side, Books Inc. has been named […]
Archives for March 2016
People, Etc.
Renee Zuckerbrot will join Lippincott Massie McQuilkin on April 25, after running her own agency for more than 10 years. She says in the announcement, “While I’ve enjoyed working on my own, it makes good business sense for me and my clients to be part of a larger team. LMQ has a stellar reputation for curating a terrific list of writers, and I couldn’t be more excited to join them.” In the UK, Faber publisher for adult publishing Mitzi Angel has restructured the editorial department, eliminating Hannah Griffiths‘ position as publisher for fiction and paperbacks and Julian Loose‘s role of publisher for non-fiction and […]
HarperCollins Will Lower TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD Trade Paperback Price For Schools
HarperCollins announced Tuesday afternoon that it will offer the trade paperback edition of Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird at a lower price through its accounts that sell directly to K-12 schools in the US. The price promotion, which starts April 27, will reduce the $14.99 list price so that schools can “effectively purchase the book based on an $8.99 cover price.” A company spokesperson tells us the promotion is “open-ended at this time” and they “will evaluate it on an ongoing basis as we do with other sales promotions.” HarperCollins US & Canada president & publisher Michael Morrison said in […]
Authors Puzzle Over February KU Payments
As usual, Amazon announced their retroactive payment rate for ebooks in the Kindle Unlimited subscription program that were read in February. The company elected to allocate a pool of $14 million — down $1 million from January, in a slightly shorter month — paying at the rate of $.00478 per page in the US. That’s a rebound from the low point in January, when the rate dropped to $.00412 per page. Or is it? February was the first month that Amazon used their new methodology for calculating what constitutes a page for payment purposes, the poetically-named KENPC 2.0 [Kindle Edition Normalized […]
People, Etc.
Andrew Smith will join Abrams as svp, publisher, children’s books on March 31. Previously he was svp, deputy publisher at Little, Brown Children’s. He succeeds Susan Van Metre, who after six years as publisher will transition to vp, editor in chief, children’s books and editorial director, Amulet to focus on acquisitions and guiding its editorial team. Van Metre and associate publisher Jody Mosley will report to Smith. Abrams president & ceo Michael Jacobs said in the announcement: “I am pleased that Andrew Smith will be joining Abrams. In him, we have found an experienced and extremely dedicated book publishing executive […]
Amazon’s Misener Waffles In MFN Testimony
A UK Parliament committee has been gathering evidence on The Digital Economy, including a written complaint about Amazon’s market power filed by the Bookseller’s Association, and oral testimony from Amazon’s vp of global public policy Paul Misener. On the question of most favored nations clauses, which are under investigation by the European Commission, Misener said: “We have MFN clauses with respect to e-books and e-books alone. Those MFN clauses cover pricing and other characteristics—release dates and those sorts of things.” Despite legal remedies already imposed by authorities in the EU and courts in the US, he insists, “It is largely because of the opportunities […]