At an event in Paris, Spotify announced an expansion of their audiobooks efforts, now providing premium subscribers in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg with 12 hours of included free audiobook listening every month. Managing Director, Spotify Western Europe Antoine Monin says in the announcement, “Spotify’s reach presents a significant opportunity to expand the audiobooks market across France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg.” He indicates they have added 15,000 French and 15,000 Dutch and Flemish titles to their catalog. Spotify launched their offering of free audiobook listening a year ago, and they say in the release, “While it’s still early […]
Third Quarter Deals Set More New Records
Tomorrow we’ll provide the full report on deal activity in the fall/pre-Frankfurt sales period — Spoiler Alert: It has been a record season. But first we need to catch up on deal trends for the third quarter, which has also set multiple records. The visualizations below will make it more obvious than usual, but: – Overall deals reached a new high for the period, up 8.7 percent over last year – Nonfiction deals recovered, reaching a new high for the period, up 22.5 percent over last year – Fiction deals continued their growth and accelerated, reaching a new high again, […]
Imprints: Cosmo Reads
Sourcebooks will operate a new Cosmo Reads imprint, in collaboration with Cosmopolitan magazine and Hearst Books. Aiming to launch in summer 2025, they expect to publish four to six titles a year. Kate Roddy and Deb Werksman at Sourcebooks will acquire titles, in partnership with Cosmopolitan editor-in-chief Willa Bennett, editor Tamara Fuentes, and others. Promotion strategy “will be shared by Sourcebooks and Cosmopolitan.” Sourcebooks ceo Dominique Raccah says in the announcement, “Cosmopolitan uniquely reaches an insatiable audience that loves books, creating trends and big conversations! We are going to marry that with our audience-centric approach to publishing books that will excite […]
Minority Investor to Become Sole Owner of Germany’s Suhrkamp
German businessman Dirk Möhrle will become the sole owner of 100-year-old publisher Suhrkamp on November 1, increasing the minority 39 percent stake in the company he has held since 2015, buying out the Siegfried and Ulla Unseld Family Foundation and the Ströher family. Jonathan Landgrebe’s position will “remain unaffected by these changes.” He writes: “I continue to take great pleasure in assuming the responsibilities that go along with the rich traditions of this publishing house. And I am happy to say that in Dirk Möhrle, we have someone by our side who has already proven himself to be a reliable, […]
Trump Tapes Case Has Been Quiet
Responding to some of the damaging revelations reported to be included in Bob Woodward’s forthcoming WAR, an emailed statement from Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung included this remark: “Woodward is an angry little man and is clearly upset because President Trump is successfully suing him because of the unauthorized publishing of recordings he made previously.” Trump first filed suit against Woodward and Simon & Schuster in January 2023. But no determination of “success” has been made. The action was moved to the Southern District of New York in August 2023. Notably, though the defendants’ motion to dismiss was fully […]
Authors Guild to Promote Created by Humans
The Authors Guild and start-up AI rights licensing platform Created by Humans announced a partnership in which the Guild will promote the new service and “help us make decisions about how to best serve the author community through our platform.” AG ceo Mary Rasenberger will serve on Created by Humans’ advisory board, and the two organizations will “develop informational materials and webinars that clearly explain the terms of licenses and the fees” to authors. The Authors Guild adds that it “aims to ensure that terms are transparent to authors and that their interests are protected.” As we reported in June, […]