The company released this statement from ceo Markus Dohle on Tuesday afternoon: “We are pleased to announce that The Wylie Agency and Random House have resolved our differences over the disputed Random House titles which have been included in the Odyssey Editions e-book publishing program. These titles are being removed from that program and taken off-sale. “We have agreed that Random House shall be the exclusive e-book publisher of these titles for those territories in which Random House U.S. controls their rights. The titles soon will be available for sale on a non-exclusive basis through all of Random House’s current e-book customers. Random House is resuming normal business […]
Legal Costs Add to Barnes & Noble’s Losses, As Bookstore Comps Are Nearly Flat
Barnes & Noble reported first quarter sales of $1.397 billion, with a net loss of $62.5 million or $1.12 per share–at the high end of the company’s forecast losses, but more than analysts had penciled in as we reported yesterday. Among the expenses were $9.5 million (or 11 cents a share) “primarily” due to the legal battle in Delaware with Yucaipa. The company declined to discuss the proxy battle in this morning’s conference call with investors following the earnings release. Because of those legal costs and the proxy fight underway, the company lowered its full-year earnings forecast by 25 cents […]
Borders CFO Mark Bierley Leaves for a Better Job, and More People News
Borders had just promoted chief financial officer Mark Bierley to the added position of chief operating officer of Borders Inc. in June and bumped his salary up to $600,000 in late June but he has resigned “to pursue another employment opportunity.” VP Glen Tomaszewski will serve as interim CFO while the company searches for a replacement. Penguin USA president Susan Petersen Kennedy will take over as chair of the AAP Trade Publishers Executive Committee. At Random House Children’s, Meika Hashimoto has been promoted to assistant editor, working on Golden/Disney projects. (Additionally, her middle grade novel THE MAGIC CAKE SHOP has […]
eNews Today: More Cheap Readers/Tablets; Open Textbooks Rise; Connecting People Through Books
On their web site, Borders is taking pre-orders for two units from Micro Cruz in the mode of the recently-panned Pandigital unit. One is color touch screen ereader that looks like a tablet; the other adds an Android operating system to actually work as a cheap tablet.Borders Also taking the cheap-looks-like-a-tablet route is drugstore chain CVS. According to advertising materials found by Engadget they intend to sell a different 7-inch color ereader for $179 from LookBook. The store for the reader is powered by Kobo. It will be interesting to see whether this new wave of machines expands the market […]
How Can the UK Be Surprised By eBook Price War?
From this side of the Atlantic it looks obvious, but following the launch of the local Kindle store and price competition from WH Smith, at least some UK trade people are both upset and somehow surprised by the turn of events. Upset enough to give colorful quotes to the Bookseller, but not so firm on principle as to be identified by name, a “senior publisher” declares “it’s absolutely absurd to devalue our product but I’m not surprised because our industry is populated by nincompoops.” It’s not exactly clear who falls into this colorful category, since the same executive who is […]
20 Books for Fall
NY Magazine also lists their 20 “most anticipated” fall books: 1. Our Tragic Universe, by Scarlett Thomas2. Zero History, by William Gibson3. The Hilliker Curse: My Pursuit of Women, by James Ellroy4. Ape House, by Sara Gruen5. C, by Tom McCarthy6. Storyteller: The Authorized Biography of Roald Dahl, by Donald Sturrock7. Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, by Danielle Evans8. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, trans. Lydia Davis9. Untitled on the Obama Administration, by Bob Woodward10. By Nightfall, by Michael Cunningham11. Nemesis, by Philip Roth12. Great House, by Nicole Krauss13. Mourning Diary, by Roland Barthes14. How to Read the […]