Deal News Our Usual Reminder If for some reason this has reached you even though you are not a paying member of PublishersMarketplace, please visit the link below to join us all the time for complete deal reports and more. Click to register http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/register.shtml The Key As usual, the handy key to our Lunch deal categories. While all reports are always welcome, those that include a category will generally receive a higher listing when it comes time to put them all together. “nice deal” $1 – $49,000 “very nice deal” $50,000 – $99,000 “good deal” $100,000 – $250,000 “significant deal” […]
Lunch for Friday, May 23
Microsoft Pulls Plug on Book Search Initiative Microsoft just announced on their site: “Today we informed our partners that we are ending the Live Search Books and Live Search Academic projects and that both sites will be taken down next week. Books and scholarly publications will continue to be integrated into our Search results, but not through separate indexes. “This also means that we are winding down our digitization initiatives, including our library scanning and our in-copyright book programs. We recognize that this decision comes as disappointing news to our partners, the publishing and academic communities, and Live Search users. […]
Lunch for Thursday, May 22
Sales Slow at BN Barnes & Noble reported “lower than expected first quarter sales results” and foresees a weak “overall retail environment,” leading the company to lower full-year guidance for same-store sales for the year from slightly positive to slightly negative. On a comparable-store basis, first quarter BN store sales dropped 1.5 percent at $1 billion, while BN.com sales were up 7.2 percent to just under $100 million, with overall sales at $1.2 billion for the quarter. The company reached an agreement in principle with California over “its long-standing dispute regarding the collection of sales and use taxes on sales […]
Lunch for Wednesday, May 21
One e-Book Per Child for 2010? The One Laptop Per Child program held a workshop in Cambridge, MA at which founder Nicholas Negroponte unveiled his vision of their second generation machine — which looks a lot more like a foldable e-book. Negroponte told the group, “The next generation laptop should be a book.” Laptop Magazine reports, “The design will provide a right and left page in vertical format, a hinged laptop in horizontal format, and a flat, two-screen continuous surface for use in tablet mode.” They are hoping to produce the new machine for 2010, and also aim to reduce […]
Lunch for Tuesday, May 20
Arvato’s Dohle Picked to Run Random House This morning Bertelsmann chief executive Hartmut Ostrowski confirmed that Markus Dohle, 39 — who runs Arvato Print, part of the division previously headed by Ostrowski — has been picked to “succeed” Peter Olson as chairman and ceo of Random House. Olson “will be leaving Bertelsmann of his own initiative May 31, 2008. This decision was approved by mutual agreement with the Supervisory Board. It will allow Peter to pursue new challenges in the academic sector. He is in discussions for a position as a senior faculty member at a U.S. university.” Ostrowski tells […]
Lunch for Monday, May 19
Lawrence Hill Takes Commonwealth Prize Canadian Lawrence Hill’s THE BOOK OF NEGROES, about a West African girl sold into slavery in 18th-century South Carolina who eventually returns home, won the overall Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. Tahmima Anam of Bangladesh won the Best First Book prize for A GOLDEN AGE. Bloomberg Weinstein Announces Alchemist Film Project Harvey Weinstein announced at Cannes that he will personally produce a film version of Paulo Coelho’s bestselling THE ALCHEMIST. The project had languished at Warner Bros. for years, with Laurence Fishburne eventually acquiring the rights along with A-Mark Entertainment. They are thought to have sold rights […]