Author Cornelia Funke‘s new independent publishing house Breathing Books has a sales and distribution agreement with PGW for the US and Canada. Her first title, The Golden Yarn, is now set for publication on December 1, 2015. (When Funke originally announced that she was parting ways with Little, Brown Children’s and Chicken House in the UK, she was aiming for a November release of the book.) She says in the announcement, “I’m thrilled that Breathing Books has found a distribution partner in PGW. As they know about my passion for working with booksellers and finding the best ways to share my books with my North American […]
Authors
Kindle Unlimited Payment Drops Below Half A Cent Per Page
Amazon announced their retroactive pool of money to compensate their exclusive, self-published authors for titles read through the Kindle Unlimited subscription program in October. The company allocated $12.4 million — up from $12 million in September — but pages read grew more than dollars allocated, so the payment per page dropped to $.004809. As KU authors quickly noted online, the payment per page has declined every month since Amazon switched to paying by pages read rather than books borrowed. The payments started at $.005779 per page for July. The total pool of money paid out has grown $900,000 since July […]
People
Peter Garabedian will retire from Macmillan at the end of the year, after joining the company in 2000 as COO. Dan Schwartz has been promoted to the new position of svp, finance and strategy, and “will drive the divisional strategy process, oversee the data science team, and have responsibility for the US finance organization.” Esther Kim is being promoted to the new position of director of business planning, and will work with Schwartz on topics related to analytics, business development and strategy. At HarperCollins, Shawn Nicholls has been promoted to associate publisher for Avon, Impulse, and Witness, as well as for mass market paperbacks, reporting to Lynn […]
People: McGuire Leaving Ballantine Bantam Dell; Kloske Appointed Riverhead President; and More
Ballantine Bantam Dell executive vice president and publisher Libby McGuire will leave the company at the end of the year in order to “dedicate her time to seeking and creating new professional opportunities for herself,” RH Publishing Group president and publisher Gina Centrello writes. She notes McGuire’s departure “with great respect for those accomplishments, and for her wish to reenvision her career.” McGuire has spent more than 15 years at what became Ballantine Bantam Dell; her direct reports will report to Gina Centrello for an interim period. “Libby and her world-class publishing team are admired industry-wide for the creativity and care […]
Trick Rather Than Treat? Kindle Unlimited Changes the Payment Rules Again
Amazon announced another changed in how they will compensate self-published authors who participate in the Kindle Unlimited subscription payment pool. In July the system switched from paying for every download to paying based on pages read — and now those per-page rates are becoming much more complicated, international, and opaque. Starting with the November fund payments, Amazon writes, “payouts per country will differ based on local country factors” as take “marketplace differences into account.” In other words, as Kindle Unlimited has rolled out to multiple countries — most recently India, where the subscription price is the equivalent of $3 a […]
People: Ward Promoted to Random House EIC
Andy Ward has been promoted to president and editor-in-chief of the Random House imprint effective immediately, reporting to Susan Kamil, who transfers her EIC duties and remains as publisher. She says the promotion is “in recognition of the bestselling and critically lauded titles he has brought to Random House, his universally acknowledged editorial gifts and publishing skill, the respect he elicits from his authors, peers, and the agent community, and his motivating, nurturing collaboration with his colleagues.” Kamil “will be concentrating on the long-term and day-to-day publishing decisions for our lists, while Ward is “responsible for the daily management of the Random House […]