Diversion Publishing is launching a new self-publishing division, Radius Book Group, led by vp, business development Mary Cummings and managing editor Fiona Hallowell. Radius will sell aspiring authors packages ranging from DIY options through Ingram Spark to comprehensive publishing services. Bestselling self-published author Marie Force is launching a new contemporary romance company, Jack’s House Publishing. Force says in…
New Business Models
Harvard Common Press Sold to Quarto; Put Me In the Story Expands at BN; More From Basford
Quarto has completed their acquisition of The Harvard Common Press, as of February 1, adding hundreds of titles to their backlist along with over 25,000 recipes. HCP will become an imprint of Quarto, with editorial and production run out of Quarto’s office in Beverly, MA and editorial director Dan Rosenberg keeping the same role. Harvard Common Press president and publisher…
Scouting the Bad and the Very Bad in Kindle’s Reader-Powered Platform
Katy Waldman at Slate has a look at some of the featured titles in the recent Kindle Scout initiative, where readers are supposed to sample excerpts from unpublished manuscripts and recommend them for publication through Kindle Press. Her theme is: “This kind of writing is unabashed. It is breathtakingly, gloriously bad. And it raises a question:…
Scribd Adds Audiobooks to Their Subscription Plan
Scribd substantially expanded their subscription reading service on Thursday morning, adding a collection of more than 30,000 audiobooks titles, available for unlimited streaming and downloading as a part of their regular $8.99 subscription service, alongside the ebooks they have offered since October 2013. In contrast to the ebooks, which are mostly backlist titles, the audiobook…
Amazon Rolls Out Kindle Unlimited In UK, At £7.99 A Month
On Wednesday Amazon launched their Kindle Unlimited subscription program in the UK, charging more on a relative basis, priced at £7.99 a month (or a little over $13, or 30 percent more than the US version). The offering is otherwise very similar to the US version, featuring a licensed deal for Harry Potter and a…
Digital Briefs: Kobo In Holland, Public Radio/TV eBook Premiums, and More
Kobo has had a Dutch ebookstore since early 2012, launched in cooperation with local retailer Libris Blz, and now they have partnered with Bol.com, “the largest provider of ebooks in the Netherlands and Belgium.” BookShout has an agreement with premium supplier Forest Incentives that will enable public radio and TV stations to provide ebooks as…