As Spotify discernibly grows the audiobook market with their inclusion of 15 hours of audiobook listening per month as part of their premium subscriptions, Amazon has responded with their own similar offer. In a press release on Tuesday, they announced that Amazon Music subscribers in the US, UK and Canada can listen to one full audiobook per month as part of their Unlimited plan, at no additional cost. They say it’s available across the full Audible catalog of over 1 million audiobooks.
Imprints: Sourcebooks Pairs with Author Jeffrey Mason
Sourcebooks announced a joint venture imprint partnership with another successful self-published author, pairing with Jeffrey Mason, creator of the line of Hear Your Story guided storytelling journals. This year alone Mason’s books have sold well over 700,000 copies in the US as tracked by Circana Bookscan, and Sourcebooks says his line has sold over 2 million copies worldwide. The agreement covers world rights and audio. Sourcebooks editor Ariel Curry is working on the line. Starting in 2018, Mason created the series “as a response to his father’s battle with Alzheimer’s,” beginning with Mom, I Want to Hear Your Story and […]
Listening to Lipskar
Open Road’s latest behind-the-scenes in publishing podcast is a recorded conversation from September between Simon Lipskar at Writers House and Open Road ceo David Steinberger. Lipskar discusses learning about the business of the business in his early days as an agent: “All I did was go to lunch and ask questions…. What I learned was nothing surprising, but it all had to do with budgets being based off of gross receipts. That was it. There was nothing more to it. So everyone’s budgets were being built off of gross receipts, and executives’ bonuses were contingent upon delivering on budget. So […]
Harper Strikes Deal to License Nonfiction Books for AI; Makes Offer to Authors
Harper Collins has negotiated a licensing agreement with the one of the major AI companies “to allow limited use of select nonfiction backlist titles for training AI models to improve model quality and performance.” The company has briefed some agents on the deal and started by making offers to a modest set of authors to sign a contract amendment agreeing to participate in the deal. They say in a statement to PL, “While we believe this deal is attractive, we respect the various views of our authors, and they have the choice to opt in to the agreement or to […]
Giving Thanks and Moving Ahead
It’s been a topsy turvy time recently for all kinds of reasons, which has delayed our annual marking of the occasion. But even in difficult times it’s important to make room for gratitude and appreciation of anything good. So with a mix of humility and irrepressible hope for the future, we admit to our aging: Publishers Marketplace is now a mature-sounding 23 years old — launched at another time of significant uncertainty, months after the first dot-com bubble burst and just weeks after 9/11 (and that means Publishers Lunch will turn 25 next spring). As I express regularly, we’re here […]
Bookscan Analyst Predicts “Strong Holiday” Sales
Following solid year-over-year gains in October for print book sales, Circana Bookscan analyst Brenna Connor foresees a strong selling season for the holidays. In her weekly analysis published Friday, Connor wrote: “My 2024 holiday outlook is positive. I believe the book market will see an improvement in sales compared to last year. Consumer engagement with books is high in 2024 and the market is poised for a strong holiday season, with sales volume growing between 1 percent and 4 percent compared to last year, with stronger MSRP dollar growth. This holiday there will be a focus on value for many […]