eBook start-up Kobo is being sold to Japanese internet giant Rakuten for $315 million on a fully-diluted basis. Kobo will continue to operate as a stand-alone entity, based in Toronto, Canada. Kobo’s majority shareholder Indigo Books & Music said they expect to receive $140 million to $150 million in proceeds, though they told shareholders “the account gain cannot be determined at this time.” Those proceeds are almost equal to Indigo’s total market cap as of yesterday. As you would expect, their thinly-traded stock jumped by over 50 percent this morning, though at $10.50 a share the price is still well […]
ebookstores
Authors In the Kindle Lending Library: The Complete List
We’ve been finding that a lot of authors, agents and publishers often don’t know that they have books that Amazon has elected to include in the Kindle Lending Library “promotion”–where the etailer pays the full wholesale ebook price. So here is a linked list of all the authors Amazon says are represented in the collection, along with the number of titles matches. (Sometimes Amazon makes a match even if the “author” has contributed just a foreword.) We’ve also been working hard to learn more about the nature of the titles in the collection, through a variety of search routines (none […]
Agents Express Concern Over Kindle Lending Library
As we reported yesterday afternoon, many of the trade publishers with books included in Amazon’s new Kindle Lending Library did not consent to that participation and therefore had neither notified nor consulted with agents in advance about the program and its terms. (At least some of those companies specifically declined Amazon’s earlier offer to participate.) The Association of Authors’ Representatives has issued a statement on the new initiative: “The agent and author community have not been consulted about this new sort of use of authors’ copyrighted material, and are unaware of how publishers plan on compensating authors for this sort […]
Kindle-Lent, Without Consent
As publishers and agents have started to realize with exasperation today, a number of titles in the Kindle Lending Library program–including some of the bestselling, prominently-promoted titles on the program’s home page–are part of this new initiative without the consent or affirmative participation of the publishers and rightsholders. Not only that, but at least some come from companies that directly turned down Amazon’s initial offer over the past few months to license a broad selection of backlist for a flat fee. Multiple participants were only told by Amazon yesterday (or found out themselves this morning) that this was happening. How […]
Briefs: Opening Week Sales for STEVE JOBS; The Numbers on Amazon Publishing; and More
Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs sold more than 382,000 print copies in its first week on sale in the US, with an additional 37,244 copies sold in the UK, according to Bookscan numbers obtained by the Bookseller. The numbers make STEVE JOBS the 18th bestselling book of the year after just six days on sale, based solely on the outlets Bookscan reports from. It is not known yet how many digital copies Simon & Schuster has sold so far. Amazon Publishing has released 149 titles to date from its various imprints (with at least another hundred to follow in […]
Kobo Prepares Self-Publishing and Color Digital Exclusives
Kobo has been saying for a while now they would launch an ebook self-publishing service along the lines of Amazon’s KDP and Barnes & Noble’s PubIt. Canada’s CBC News has a report that Kobo will develop an in-house publishing division akin to Amazon’s efforts, though we’re told the CBC might have interpreted the company’s plans a bit liberally. The broadcast report has one very brief sound bite from Kobo ceo Michael Serbinis, who says, “It’s part of the new market and if you expect to be a No. 1 player in that market globally it’s table stakes — you have […]