Since PublishersMarketplace.com was started just over 18 years ago (a year and half or so after we created Publishers Lunch), our constant focus has been on doing more for our members all the time. This year we have spent a lot of effort on explaining ourselves better — through deal reporting tips and policies, a big writer’s guide to PM, live tours and now a condensed video tour of some of our key features, and even a short video showing some of what’s behind the paywall for non-members. (We’ve also helped explain the business itself through the years-in-the-making new initiative […]
Scribd Raises $58 Million, As Some of Those Unauthorized Snapshots Have Been Removed
Subscription service Scribd announced raising $58 million in equity financing from Spectrum Equity. They say the funds will be used “to continue to operate sustainably and efficiently while accelerating our growth, product innovations, content acquisition and continued investment in our employees.” Despite the raise, Scribd has said that it has been profitable since 2016 — even declaring its model “more profitable than we wanted” before going back to mostly unlimited access in early 2018. Scribd irritated a number of key partners earlier this summer among authors, agents and publishers when they launched their Snapshots program without permission, creating their own […]
10-Digit ISBNs Will Be Gone for Good Next Year
The Book Industry Study Group’s Metadata Committee presented information about Bowker’s plans to introduce new 979 prefix for book ISBNs starting in early 2020, as demand for the existing 978-prefix blocks has diminished the available inventory. But the introduction of a new prefix block means more than just an expansion of available ISBNs: It means that “for the first time in the US market” since the move to 13-digits ISBNs in 2007, “there will be no 10-digit equivalent to a 979 ISBN.” As result, everyone will now have to be fully 13-digit compliant; there will be no more getting away […]
Former California Barnes & Noble Bookseller Sues for Age Discrimination, Seeking Class Action Status
Longtime Barnes & Noble employee Barbara Tavres, 59, filed suit against the bookseller in the US District Court in Northern California, seeking class action status and alleging age discrimination. After working for B&N in community relations since 2006, most recently at a bookstore in Emeryville, CA — during a career of positive performance reviews that included winning their Above & Beyond award in 2016 — Tavres was told she was being terminated on September 9. She charges that earlier that same day, her district manager Phil Alexander and “other management-level Barnes & Noble employees had participated in a recurring weekly […]
Yet Again, Springer Nature Said to Hope for An IPO
The various private equity companies that have traded educational publisher Springer for more than a decade now have hoped for an offering of shares to the public since at least 2012 if not earlier, both to help pay down a persistent debt load and to provide a pathway to an exit. The current incarnation of the company, the Springer Nature joint venture, came close to pulling it off in 2018 — but the offering on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange fell apart at the last minute. At first they reduced the share price and had 53-percent partner Holtzbrinck step in to […]
Bookselling: Amazon Books In Scottsdale, Interabang Reopens, and More
The 20th Amazon Books location opens today in Scottsdale, AZ in a modest 4,000-square-space. It features devices, toys, games, customer favorites and even some books. Though the stores originally did not disclose the discounted prices for Amazon Prime participants, they are now using electronic price tags to display a range of information. As promised, Interabang Books in Dallas will reopen Thursday in a temporary space after the store’s original home was wiped out by a tornado in October. The rebuilding of that shopping center could take a year or more. Former manager and events coordinator at Malaprop’s in North Carolina, […]