After months of fighting over sales tax issues, Amazon appears to be close to a deal with the state of Texas that would see Amazon creating more than 5,000 jobs and invest $300 million in the state over the next three years, so long as Texas exempts Amazon from paying sales tax for the next four and a half years. The proposal, which does not explicitly name Amazon but , is attached to a state Senate fiscal matters bill that must be passed in order to balance the next fiscal year budget. It would also not exempt Amazon or any […]
Distribution
Announcements: New Funding for Osprey, John Locke’s a Kindle Millionaire
Osprey Group announced it has received new funding from London private equity firm Alcuin Capital Partners, providing additional expansion capital to continue Osprey’s strong growth in niche and enthusiast market segments. With the investment, Alcuin acquires a controlling interest in Osprey but the company’s existing majority shareholder Botts Capital Nominees will remain a significant minority shareholder going forward. Self-published thriller phenomenon John Locke is the latest (and eighth) author to sell more than a million Kindle ebooks. Release The British Library has signed a multi-year deal that will allow Google to scan more than 250,000 out-of-copyright works from 1700 to […]
People, Etc.
At Other Press, Megan Feulner has been promoted to publicist, and Sophia Sherry has been promoted to publicity and marketing coordinator. Tisse Takagi has joined Basic Books as associate editor. Previously she was at Oxford University Press. Justina Batchelor has joined Touchstone as a publicist. She was at Crown. Jessica Shoffel joined Penguin Children’s as a publicist. She was previous in the publicity department at Random House Children’s Books. Larissa Edwards, currently associate publisher at Random House Australia, will join Simon and Schuster Australia this July in a newly created role as head of publishing, reporting to managing director Lou […]
People: Obreht Wins Orange Prize, and More
Tea Obreht has won the 2011 Orange Prize for THE TIGER’S WIFE (Random House/Weidenfield & Nicolson). At 25 years old, Obreht is the youngest winner in the prize’s history. Release Edith Pearlman has won the PEN/Malamud Award for excellence in the “art of short fiction.” AP The Center for Fiction has named Scribner vp and editor-in-chief Nan Graham its 2011 recipient of the Maxwell E. Perkins Prize. “It seems most appropriate, if not overdue, for the Maxwell Perkins Award to recognize an editor who has for sixteen years published some of America’s most eloquent, most necessary writers under the imprint […]
People, Etc.
At Little, Brown Children’s, Alvina Ling has been promoted to fiction editorial director, and Julie Scheina is moving up to editor. At Open Road, Lauren Naefe joins the company as senior digital marketing manager, focusing on publishing partnerships and author brand marketing, and reporting to chief marketing officer Rachel Chou. She was at Harper, Doubleday and most recently the National School Climate Council. Allison Myers Underwood will report to Naefe as marketing manager (she was at Knopf Doubleday); Laura De Silva has been promoted to associate digital marketing manager, reporting to Chou; and Justin Mitchell has been hired as assistant […]
Layoffs at Barnes & Noble Distribution Warehouse; Big Q1 Earnings Drop for BAMM
Barnes & Noble laid off an unspecified number of employees at its distribution warehouse in Monroe, NJ earlier this week. In addition, the Social Security Administration is looking into possible discrepancies in employment information at the center, though a BN spokeswoman said “the reduction in workforce … has nothing to do with the Social Security inquiry,” and declined to say how many employees were being questioned in the matter. MyCentralJersey.com Sales for Books-A-Million’s first quarter dropped 11 percent to $104 million, with store comps falling 13.2 percent from last year (when the company reported a 3.6 percent drop from 2009.) […]