After last week’s official confirmation of talks and a newsmaking weekend overture from News Corp., Bertelsmann and Pearson made their intended partnership official in an early Monday morning announcement that they have agreed to combine their trade book businesses into a single entity known as Penguin Random House. Under the deal, which is “expected to complete in the second half of 2013” but could take some time while awaiting regulatory clearances in multiple territories, Bertelsmann will hold 53 percent of the new company and Pearson will take a 47 percent stake, agreeing to hold those stakes for a minimum of […]
Judge Throws Out Lawsuit Alleging McGraw-Hill Deprived Photographer of Foreign Royalties
Earlier this week a federal court judge threw out a lawsuit against McGraw-Hill seeking class-action status in which photographer Bob Cordell claimed the publisher had deprived him of foreign royalties for his manuscript “Designing Audio Power Amplifiers.” The case should be of interest for those following suit against Harlequin over ebook royalties that we covered earlier this week. In the complaint, Cordell alleged that McGraw-Hill “systematically violates its contracts with its authors by failing to remit royalties based upon the amounts received from third parties for sales of works outside of the United States, when these third parties are the […]
Briefs: Jacques Barzun Dies; Strand Central Park Stalls Up For Grabs; And More
Cultural critic, historian, and essayist Jacques Barzun, 104, died Thursday evening in San Antonio. Barzun was a longtime professor at Columbia University and the author of dozens of books, including TEACHER OF AMERICA (1945), THE HOUSE OF INTELLECT (1959), THE DELIGHTS OF DETECTION (1961), and most recently, FROM DAWN TILL DECADENCE (2000). NYT Obit In a separate bit of news from Pearson, evp for Content Management, North America Dan Lee will become ceo of Pearson Canada on December 31, when current CEO Allan Reynolds retires. The Central Park stalls currently operated by The Strand Bookstore on Fifth Avenue and East […]
People, Etc.
Effective immediately, Midpoint Trade will distribute print and digital editions of Bunker Hill Publishing, which publishes educational books in collaboration with museums and international research organizations. The Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize has gone to Frank Cottrell Boyce‘s THE UNFORGOTTEN COAT. Take the Guardian’s headline “Amazon to be stripped of tax advantage on sale of ebooks” with a grain of salt. Just as the European Commission warned France about their lowered VAT rate, the EC has now threatened to take Luxembourg to court over their 3 percent VAT on digital services (well below the 15 percent rate that is supposed to […]
eNews: Kindle Japan Store Opens on October 25, with Paperwhite and Fire Devices Set to Ship on November 19
Amazon is finally opening its Japan Kindle store on October 25, which includes more than 50,000 Japanese-language Kindle books from publishers such as Bungeishunju, Gentosha, Kadokawa, Kodansha, Shinchosha, Shogakukan and Shueisha, and includes 15,000 manga titles within that total. The Japanese Kindle store outpost will also sell the Kindle Paperwhite Wi-Fi and 3G for ¥8,480 ($106.31) and ¥12,980 ($162.72), and the Kindle Fire and Fire HD for ¥12,800 ($160.50) and ¥15,800 (USD $198), respectively. The Paperwhite devices will ship from Amazon.co.jp starting November 19 while the Fire devices will be available a month later, on December 19. Retailers K’s Holdings, […]
Harlequin Denies Depriving Authors of eBook Royalties Through Switzerland Subsidiaries
On October 19 Harlequin responded to a class action-seeking lawsuit launched this summer by three authors — Barbara Keiler, writing as Judith Arnold; Mona Gay Thomas, writing as Gayle Wilson, and Linda Barrett. The suit alleges that the romance publisher deprived them of ebook royalties by funneling agreements through a Swiss-based subsidiary, which “licensed” ebooks to Harlequin’s actual publishing entity. In their reply, Harlequin denied the allegations, said they acted exactly as the contracts provided and sought to dismiss the suit entirely as being without merit. Harlequin’s basic argument is that, since the authors aren’t arguing the contracts were done “in bad […]