Macmillan announced today that their US trade and shared services division will continue its “hybrid & remote-friendly” work policy all the way through the end of 2023. Employees whose work can be done remotely “have the flexibility to choose the number of days per week they work in the office, or choose to work fully remotely.” CEO Jon Yaged says in the announcement: “Two things are clear: people want flexibility and we continue to live in uncertain times. So, we’ll continue what has been working for us while we spend the next fourteen months evaluating the best way to engage […]
Spotify’s Plans for Audiobook Growth Were Based on Magical Thinking About Apple’s App Store
Spotify has answered for themselves the question about whether their long-touted audiobooks offering will have much impact on the market. The company has struggled to obtain approval from Apple’s app store for their efforts to circumvent the well-known rules around in-app purchases. It turns out if you don’t want to pay Apple their 30 percent commission, you wind up with an awkward process: “The Audiobooks purchase flow that Apple’s rules force us to provide consumers today is far too complicated and confusing.” Spotify seems to think there is something new about this: “This harms not only consumers, but, this time, […]
Prescott Prevails on Primary Charges of Plagiarism By Pasternak
In the long-running case brought in the UK by Boris Pasternak’s great-niece Anna Pasternak against Lara Prescott, author of the novel THE SECRETS WE KEPT, alleging copyright infringement of Pasternak’s nonfiction book Lara: The Untold Love Story and the Inspiration for Doctor Zhivago, UK Justice Edwin Johnson found in favor of Prescott on all of the major claims. If you are a fan of close textual reading, the dense 149-page ruling is a substantial work that stands on its own. Broadly, Justice Johnson was “satisfied that the defendant used Lara only as a secondary source,” calling it “obvious when one […]
Wylie Reports on Rushdie’s Wounds, Tells Tales About The Trial
Spanish newspaper El Pais interviewed Andrew Wylie at the Frankfurt Book Fair, where he reported the sad news that Salman Rushdie has “lost the sight of one eye” and “one hand is incapacitated because the nerves in his arm were cut.” Wylie underscored, “it was a brutal attack” and Rushdie “has about 15 more wounds in his chest and torso.” More broadly, the full interview is classic Wylie. He provides a colorful account of what he believes he said in court during the Penguin Random House antitrust trial: “The mistake the Department of Justice made was they were talking about […]
Scholastic Boosts Their Slumping Stock with $75 Million Buyback
Scholastic has lifted their depressed stock price with an announcement Monday of a $75 million share purchase program through a modified Dutch Auction. The offer opens on Tuesday, October 25 and is scheduled to close by November 22, and will buy back shares at an expected price of between $35 and $40 a share. (On Friday, shares had closed at $33.63 a share.) The company says it is able to finance the buyback through cash on hand. The market has responded as expected, pushing shares up by over $4 a share in the first hour of trading on Monday, though […]
Hoover’s New Novel Sold Over 800,000 Units on Opening Day
Colleen Hoover’s IT STARTS WITH US sold over 800,000 units in the US on its publication day, Tuesday, October 18, publisher Atria reported. That includes considerable pre-orders, along with sales across all major formats (print, ebooks, and digital audiobooks). Atria printed 2.5 million copies, across four printings, and said the book “was the most pre-ordered novel in Simon & Schuster history.” Update: NPD Bookscan subsequently recorded opening week sales of 809,000 hardcovers alone through the outlets that they track.