A number of plaintiffs and interested parties have responded Monday to last week’s ruling in the Georgia State University e-reserves lawsuit that found 5 instances of infringement but otherwise dismissed more than 64 instances, and AAP president Tom Allen and the organization’s lead attorney in the case Bruce Rich convened a press briefing by phone on Tuesday morning. Allen that the AAP alone has invested “several million dollars” in the case so far. He underscored that “our members are very conscious that the universities and their libraries are our customers.” Allen added, “our hope is that this is an important […]
Legal Briefs: 17 More States Join Amended eBook Pricing Complaint; ‘Godfather’ Sequel Proceeds in Escrow; and More
Late last week 16 more states, as well as the District of Columbia, joined the amended ebook pricing complaint against Apple and the ‘Agency Five’ publishers, bringing the number of states involved in the lawsuit to 32. Texas and Connecticut initially filed the complaint at the same time as the DOJ; among the new plaintiffs are Virginia, Indiana, New York, and Wisconsin. Page One Bookstore in Albuquerque, NM, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in February 2011, said it expects final approval of a reorganization plan to move forward as a going concern “shortly,” according to the Albuquerque Journal. Owner […]
People: The Shack Author’s “Cross Roads” Set for November
Kimberly Snead his been hired for the new position of director, brand strategy at the Crown Publishing Group, reporting to vp, business development Ranjana Wingender. Snead was director, consumer marketing at Nickelodeon/MTV Networks. She will be “responsible for conceiving, creating, and executing brand development plans for a variety of authors” across the group. Daniel Nayeri has been named to the new position of digital editorial director at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children’s, overseeing the e-book publishing program for all frontlist and backlist HMH children’s books, as well as acquiring e-original content and developing multimedia projects. He was editor at HMH’s Clarion. […]
Kindle Owners’ Lending Library Gets “Exclusive” License to Lend All Seven Harry Potter eBooks
After teasing customers on its website yesterday that Harry Potter “Wizardry was on the Way,” Amazon announced Wednesday morning that all seven Harry Potter ebooks by J.K. Rowling will be available in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library as part of an “exclusive” license, starting June 19. Amazon tells PL the license runs “until at least 2014” and says the exclusivity means “this is the only licensing agreement of its kind for any retailer.”The French, Italian, German and Spanish editions will all be available for borrowing in KOLL. “We’re absolutely delighted to have reached this agreement with Pottermore. This is the […]
People, Etc.
Sara Nelson has been named editorial director, Amazon.com books, responsible for “leading our editorial vision for books in the print and Kindle bookstores” a company spokesperson told PW. She was most recently books editor at O Magazine, and prior to that was editor-in-chief of Publishers Weekly. Nelson, who will work out of New York starting next month, said in a statement: “I am thrilled to have the opportunity to expand the content on Amazon.com and to bring my voice to this Web site visited by millions of passionate readers.” (We’ve noticed many people in publishing mistakenly think she’s working for […]
The Quarter: Digital Rises at Harper and Hachette
News Corp. reported third quarter sales for the period ending March 31 after the close of the market Wednesday. In a departure from recent reports, the release actually mentions their book publishing unit by unit, once, in this morsel: Profits fell in their newspaper-dominated publishing business unit, but “the decline was partially offset by improved contributions from Dow Jones, HarperCollins and the integrated marketing services business.” In a brief statement of their own, Harper said they had “a terrific quarter across the board” thanks to “lower returns and higher ebook sales in most areas.” Worldwide digital sales for the quarter […]