The Guardian reports on a UK Amazon contract they have seen that seeks to account for 20 percent VAT before calculating the publisher’s share of digital list price–even though Amazon sells ebooks via their Luxembourg subsidiary and only pays 3 percent VAT at the moment. (That said, by 2015 EU law will change and the loophole will be closed–VAT will be applied based on where the purchaser resides, rather than the country pretending to sell the goods.) Former IT director of the Book Depository Will Jones is launching another independent online bookseller, Wordery, with titles supplied by Bertrams. The platform […]
Financing/Start-Ups
Frances Coady Launches Brightline, With Backing from Diller and Rudin, and Collaboration from the Atavist
After months of rumors, there are at least vague details about the ebook publishing plans of IAC chairman Barry Diller and film producer Scott Rudin. They have formed Brightline, led by Frances Coady–who left Picador, where she was president and publisher, in a February restructuring after 12 years at the imprint–with $20 million in funding from IAC. In parallel, the NYT reports, there is a partnership between Brightline and The Atavist, in which the two “will exchange an undetermined amount of minority equity interests in each other’s ventures” and publish together in an otherwise undefined partnership. The two companies will […]
eNews: Amazon UK Says Kindle Sales There Surpass Print; AG Asks Court To Declare GBS “Is Not Fair Use”; And More
Amazon UK issued a press release Monday touting the news that ebook sales now outpace all print sales combined, measured across 2012. For every 100 print books sold from Amazon.co.uk (in all formats combined), they’ve sold 114 Kindle editions. As usual, their ratio excludes free Kindle books (but does include very inexpensive ones, and KDP titles). Amazon US passed a similar milestone as of April 1, 2011. They also declare EL James as Amazon UK’s all-time bestselling author, they say, her combined print and Kindle sales eclipsing JK Rowling’s total sales at the site. Amazon UK has sold more than […]
eNews: Macmillan’s $100 Million+ for Acquisitions; TED Launches Reading App/Store
Former Questia founder Troy Williams, who joined Macmillan as general manager of New Ventures in fall 2010, tells Pando Daily that Holtzbrinck has allocated something over $100 million for him to purchase “ed-tech startups that will eventually be the future of Macmillan…as Macmillan transitions out of the content business and into educational software and services.” Williams indicates to them he “plans to do five deals this year and 10 to 15 over the course of the next five years.” Acquisitions so far include Prep-U, a student “quizzing engine,” i-Clicker, a mobile classroom polling company, and most recently Educational Benchmarking, a […]
People, Etc.
Matthew Ballast has been promoted to acting director of publicity for Grand Central Publishing, replacing Jennifer Romanello, who recently departed the company. Rachel Burley has been appointed vp, director of open access at Wiley, where she will facilitate the identification of open access opportunities and lead the development of products, policy, technology, processes, sales, and marketing initiatives necessary to provide support to authors. She has been at the company for five years, most recently as vp, publisher for current protocols. At S&S Children’s, Jacqui Hudson has been named ebook developer and specialist for the Free Press, Aladdin, Simon Spotlight, Paula […]
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 […]