The fast-growing Swedish audiobook streaming service Storytel received a boost from big Swedish-based private equity and investment firm EQT’s Private Value. In a press release issued Tuesday, the company revealed that EQT recently acquired 6.6 million shares in Storytel, close to 10 percent of shares outstanding. EQT Public Value’s Joakim Rubin has been nominated as a director of Storytel. Also making news is the nomination of board member Stefan Blom to take over as chair from longtime leader Rustan Panday. Blom was a c-suite executive at Spotify for seven years. Storytel shares rose over 8 percent on Tuesday on the […]
Legal: Publishers and Internet Archive Ask for Three-Month Extension
In a joint letter to Judge John Koeltl, both parties in the trade publishers’ copyright infringement lawsuit against the Internet Archive asked for a revised schedule extending the discovery deadlines for the second time, postponing everything by another three months. Fact discovery was due to have been completed by September 24. The parties report “extensive progress on discovery…. But looking ahead, it has become clear that more time is required to process the voluminous documentary evidence produced in this case. It inevitably takes a lot of time to review and synthesize such large volumes of documents and more time is […]
Forthcoming: Elle Kennedy to Bloom
New adult author Elle Kennedy will move the print editions of her hockey romance series (The Deal, The Mistake, The Score, The Goal), along with The Legacy, which publishes September 21, to Sourcebooks’ Bloom Books imprint starting October 1. Updated re-issues of her previous books are planned for 2022, and her next sports romance title is due from the line in 2023. Kimberly Brower represented Kennedy.
Agencies: Tauber Launches Watermark
Founder and managing director of Chronicle Prism Mark Tauber has launched The Watermark Agency. The agency will “develop and represent projects from writers, journalists, public intellectuals, authors, leaders and credentialed experts in their fields to help them reach the widest possible audience, achieve critical acclaim, effect change—both collective and personal—and endure over time.” Before joining Chronicle, Tauber was svp and publisher at Harper One.
Legal: Gendell Wants Contempt Order Over Fee Payment
Yfat Reiss Gendell’s attorney has asked the court to find Peter McGuigan in contempt for not paying her legal defense fees, as ordered in August. She asks for immediate payment of the reduced amount McGuigan’s attorney asked the court to impose — close to $60,000 — along with daily fines and costs. In the accompanying documents, Gendell shows that the $32,000 in fees to another law firm that McGuigan has challenged relates to an earlier dispute — presenting the bill, from a year ago, “for services rendered to Foundry in connection with Foundry’s ‘wind down.'” Epstein Becker provided legal services […]
New Books Publishing September 7
The fall season begins, with fiction from Simone de Beauvoir, Colm Toibin and Sally Rooney, while nonfiction includes books from Maggie Nelson, Michaela Coel, Chris Wallace and Joy Harjo. Also out today are works by Lauren Groff, Abe Streep, Kimberly McCreight, Vera Kurian and Shruti Swamy, all excerpted in our Buzz Books 2021: Fall/Winter sampler. 29 new works of fiction https://bookshop.org/lists/new-fiction-publishing-september-7 https://shop.aer.io/publishers_lunch/cl/New_Fiction_Publishing_September_/219783 17 new nonfiction titles https://bookshop.org/lists/new-nonfiction-publishing-september-7 https://shop.aer.io/publishers_lunch/cl/New_Nonfiction_Publishing_September_/219784 30 children’s books https://bookshop.org/lists/new-children-s-titles-publishing-in-september https://shop.aer.io/publishers_lunch/cl/New_Childrens_Titles_Publishing_in_September/219782 We consult a number of sources in compiling our weekly lists and PM members can see our lists for the coming three months through this reference page. But if you […]