The American Booksellers Association convened a virtual version of their annual meeting and town hall — usually held at Book Expo — on Thursday afternoon. One traditional element was missing however, the updated statistics on the number of ABA members. Board president Jamie Fiocco said in her report, “We were in the middle of renewals when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, so with dues suspended, we do not have membership numbers right now.” Fiocco had opened the meeting by reading a statement from the board: “I’d like to say that we are saddened and horrified by our country’s violence towards people […]
Archives for June 2020
AAP April Report Shows Lower Trade Shipments and Returns, Only Modest eBook Sales Rise
The AAP’s monthly StatShot report for April provides some of the first concrete evidence of the effect of COVID-19 shutdowns on book publishing dollar sales. Note that as usual it reflects data reported from the major mainstream trade publishers, and therefore does not show some of sales boon in products like educational workbooks from some independent publishers. Instead of focusing on the usual “net” sales numbers, though, this time the real indicators are in publishers’ gross shipments to accounts, and the returns processed. Shipments were down markedly, as you would expect, and returns were far lower than usual. Adult trade […]
Internet Archive Will Suspend Massive Infringement Two Weeks Early, But Continues to Misrepresent
Following the filing of a lawsuit by four major publishers at the beginning of June over the Internet Archive’s “willful mass copyright infringement,” the IA will at least “close” their self-proclaimed National Emergency Library two weeks earlier than originally announced, on June 16. “We moved up our schedule because, last Monday, four commercial publishers chose to sue Internet Archive,” which is widely considered to have no viable legal defense for the uncontrolled digital lending they initiated in late March. They will try to defend their self-invented practice of controlled digital lending — the core principles of which they violated at […]
Wiley Reports Moderate Fourth Quarter Sales Decline, Records Steep Net Loss
Wiley announced fiscal fourth-quarter sales for the period ending April 30 of $475 million, compared to $491 million in the same period a year ago — a 3 percent decline, or 6 percent when acquisitions and $7 million in foreign exchange impact are taken into account. They incurred a big net loss of ($158) million, compared to net income of $63 million last year. As expected given global school and office shutdowns, education publishing was down 12 percent, to $84 million from $95 million, and professional learning declined 23 percent, to $66 million. The net loss reflects approximately $110 million […]
Briefs
Legal Agents Beth Phelan and Kelly Van Sant and author Isabel Sterling received cease & desist letters from an attorney representing agent Dawn Frederick at Red Sofa Literary after speaking out about Frederick’s response to protestors in St. Paul. On May 28, Frederick posted on Twitter that she had called the police about an incident near her home (the tweet has since been deleted). Subsequently, three agents, including Van Sant resigned from Red Sofa. Phelan, Van Sant, and Sterling wrote in an open letter that Frederick “demanded that we delete our respective posts regarding Dawn’s actions and further, publish retractions […]
Bolton’s Lawyer Says White House Is Trying to “Use National Security as a Pretext to Censor” Him
John Bolton’s book THE ROOM WHERE IT HAPPENED has been shipped to warehouses and distribution centers in advance of its June 23 publication date. But deputy White House counsel John Eisenberg claims “the current draft still contains classified material” and says the National Security Council will provide a redacted copy of the manuscript on or before June 19. Bolton’s attorney Charles Cooper writes in the WSJ about the extensive process of review and revision that Bolton went through with Ellen Knight, the NSC’s senior director for prepublication review of materials. By Cooper’s account, on April 27, Knight confirmed to Bolton […]