At Simon & Schuster, Sarah Reidy has been promoted to associate director of publicity. Princeton University Press announced a number of promotions. Eric Henney has been promoted to associate editor, physical and earth sciences, while Ryan Mulligan moves up to assistant editor. Shaquona Crews has been appointed director of contracts, while Kim Williams has been promoted to UK international rights director. Finally, Steven Peter has been promoted to project & systems manager. Andrew Nurnberg Associates will open a new office in Warsaw on September 1. It will be headed by Marcin Biegaj, currently senior agent and sales director at Graal. […]
Audio
Tim Ferriss Starts Audiobook Publisher, Eyes eBook Rights
Author Tim Ferriss announced on his blog that he has started an audiobook publishing venture, Tim Ferriss Publishing, under the promotional banner of the Tim Ferriss Book Club. Targeting men ages 20 to 40, and inspired in part by Oprah Winfrey, Ferriss writes, “For the last several months, I’ve been quietly buying audiobook and e-book rights to books that have changed my life, and producing audiobooks in professional studios.” Additionally, he says that ever since college he has “fantasized about somehow driving fantastic but under-appreciated books into the limelight.” The first release is a new audiobook of Rolf Potts’ VAGABONDING: An […]
Corporate: Lonely Planet Sale to NC2 Confirmed; eMusic Merges with Blio
After a vague and weak denial last month when travel site Skift first reported the deal in progress, the BBC has now confirmed its sale of Lonely Planet to little-known billionaire Brad Kelley’s NC2 media. Selling for £51.5 million ($77.3 million), the sale is now raising the expected criticism in the UK as the British public confronts the full fiasco of the broadcaster’s diversion into travel publishing. The BBC already took £50 million in writedowns on the total £130 million purchase price for Lonely Planet, and the sale is an admission that even those writedowns were not sufficient to account […]
Unlocking More Titles for Digital
The theme of today’s enews reports is clear: a variety of initiatives to get more material into digital form in a variety of ways: Two multi-volume deals with Audible were announced yesterday. Digital publisher Diversion Books will see “the majority” of their backlist and new titles going forward turned into audiobooks, available on Audible starting this winter. Diversion says they are publishing 100 titles a year. Separately, Audible is also working with UK literary agency AP Watt to produce audiobook versions of the backlists of seven well-known authors: Somerset Maugham, Nevil Shute, Robert Graves, Rafael Sabatini, P M Hubbard, Ronald […]
eNews: Kobo Touch Available in Japan Next Month; Callaway’s HAPPY New Venture is A Lifestyle App; and More
The Kobo Touch will be available for sale in Japan as soon as July, according to a report from the Asahi Shimbun. Rakuten ceo and chairman Hiroshi Mikitani said the company plans to price the Kobo Touch reader at around 10,000 yen ($126) or cheaper, with plans to sell 50,000 ebook titles by the end of the year. “As a Japanese company, we cannot lose (to overseas rivals),” Mikitani told the paper. “With Kobo devices, we will be able to export Japanese content. The Japanese publishing industry will become a huge content industry.” Further details will be announced at a […]
Briefs: Bardowl Audiobook Streaming Service Launches in Europe; Reading Rainbow iPad App; And More
A new audiobook subscription service, Bardowl, has launched in Europe and will provide unlimited access to audiobooks for £9.99 a month for those with iOS devices. Among the publishers who have signed on to provide audiobooks to Bardowl are Penguin, Macmillan, AudioGo, Wiley, and specialist audio publishers Summersdale and Creative Content. Release Months after announcing LeVar Burton and his company RRKidz announced their intention to revive Reading Rainbow, the long-running PBS children’s show that ended in 2009, as an iPad app, the service is now live in the iTunes store, available at an introductory price of $9.99 a month or […]