Ahead of a planned December 9 shareholders’ meeting, Vivendi announced that CIAM, an investor holding a very small position (a 0.025 percent stake), has filed suit to try to block their plan to divide the conglomerate into four separate companies. A hearing is scheduled before the Paris Commercial Court on December 4, for arguments on both an expedited suit looking to block the spin-off project, as well as an appeal of a November ruling from France’s market authority (AMF) finding that the spin-off plan does not trigger a mandatory buyout offer. As a result, the December 9 meeting and vote […]
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Two Tens for Summer and Fall
Malcolm Jones at Newsweek picks 10 summer reads: Nothing Daunted, by Dorothy Wickenden The Man in the Rockefeller Suit, by Mark Seal State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett Carte Blanche, by Jeffery Deaver In the Garden of Beasts, by Erik Larson Bloodmoney, by David Ignatius Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness, by Alexandra Fuller Once Upon a River, by Bonnie Jo Campbell Tigerlily’s Orchids, by Ruth Rendell The President and the Assassin, by Scott Miller New York Magazine picked the hottest fiction galleys from BEA (not all of which were actually available as galleys): The Marriage Plot, by Jeffrey […]
BEA Attendance Nearly Flat
BEA has released preliminary attendance figures for this year’s show. The total was 21,664 people, almost even with last year’s final tally of 21,919 people. The falloff was slightly higher among “attendees” (as distinguished from exhibitors), who numbered 13,028–a decline of 6 percent, or 844 people, from a year ago. The organizers say over 500 fewer authors were enrolled as attendees, accounting for much of that decline. But overall, Reed’s business at Javits grew with the inclusion of BlogWorld attendees, giving them a total of 23,067 people in the building. Show director Steve Rosato writes on his blog that “the […]
Agents at BEA: Nothing Is Off the Table
The newsmaking announcements at BEA might have been all about devices and digital, but the agents also showed up to talk about what is going on in their world of rights and royalties, and some interesting tidbits emerged. To start with, if you thought the 25 percent ebook royalty was settled, think again. On Tuesday’s AAR’s Global Publishing Marketplace panel, Jennifer Weltz, partner and rights director at Jean Naggar, stated: “Twenty-five percent shouldn’t be standard in US or anywhere else, we need escalators. When publishers come back to us and say, No, this is standard we can’t give you more, […]
Google Book Engineer Says His Staff Has Grown 50 Percent
Chief Engineer for Google Books James Crawford didn’t reveal much news at his presentation Thursday morning on Seven Years of Google Book Search, but he did mention–in contrast to unsourced allegations on the interwebs recently–that he has grown the engineering team by 50 percent since Google eBooks launched in December. Google has big international hopes that most ebooks they add from around the world will be available worldwide with limited rights issues in most territories (presumably excluding English and Spanish), and Crawford pointed to cases where “the contracts between the authors and publishers are silent or ambiguous on digital rights” as […]
More News from Publishers Launch: ABA to Test Bundling; HC Building App Studio; Amazon Readies for Brazil
ABA coo Len Vlahos revealed that they have arranged a bundling test for the fall with one publisher (and are talking to another). “When you buy the print book instore or online, you’ll get the ebook free for a fixed time,” and that ebook will be DRM-free “for this limited time period” to facilitate the bundle. On a separate Google-run panel yesterday, however, the company’s Scott Dougall said “consumers love bundling” and “we’d love to get there” to offier it. “But it’s up to the publishing industry to be more open-minded” about the pricing of bundles. Back at Publishers Launch […]