Indicated previously as under discussion, the Ed Victor Agency’s new publishing arm Bedford Square Books has formalized a partnership with Open Road, which will digitally publish, market, and distribute Bedford Square titles in North America. At the Publishers Launch Conference in London last week, Ed Victor Agency’s Charlie Campbell indicated that Open Road would serve as publisher on at least some if not all Bedford Square Books (with the Victor entities charging a regular agency commission only) and added that “on those that they don’t want to publish, they may distribute.” At the time, Campbell called Bedford Square “a publishing […]
New Business Models
Options for Library eBook Lending Expand Rapidly
The library ebook lending market is getting increasingly competitive, and diverse. At this year’s ALA Conference in New Orleans, major new ebook lending schemes, product improvements and new business models have been announced by a variety of players. 3M officially unveiled their comprehensive new ebook lending service offering, and is in the middle of a battle over whether libraries that have been OverDrive customers are contractually allowed to move their already-purchased ebook collections to 3M or other vendors. (Permission is required from the publishers in any event. The Kansas Digital Library Consortium is the system testing this provision, and they […]
Politico and RH Team Up for 2012 Election eBooks; Bundling; Pan Macmillan Digital Backlists; and More eNews
Politico and Random House are partnering to publish four “instant” digital books throughout the 2012 Presidential election beginning this fall. The as-yet-untitled series, with books to be in the 20,000-30,000 word range, will be reported and written by Politico chief white house correspondent and Playbook founder Mike Allen and former Newsweek editor Evan Thomas, with Jon Meacham to edit. Meacham pitches it as “a kind of Theodore White for the digital age” and tells the NYT that “an impetus here is to encourage people to think of book publishers in a more periodical way.” Politico editor-in-chief John Harris adds in […]
Pottermore Launches, Will Sell Ebooks in October
After days of feverish speculation, JK Rowling announced her new interactive and collaborative site Pottermore at a press conference Thursday morning. It’s free for users and features new illustrations and interactive “moments.” And yes, there will be ebooks, which the site will sell exclusively and directly to users, along with audiobook versions of all seven Potter books. The digital editions will be available for a variety of platforms through OverDrive. But even though the ebook and audiobook editions will only be available at Pottermore, her print publishers Bloomsbury and Scholastic are partnering in the venture and will receive unspecified royalties. […]
UK Site Tries to Combine Kickstarter and Byliner Models
At the Hay literary festival over the weekend, writer Justin Pollard, publishing veteran John Mitchinson and Crap Towns author Dan Kieran launched Unbound.co.uk, a site that aims to serve as a mash-up of Kickstarter and Byliner for books. The Kickstarter part is a fan-sourced funding mechanism that solicits pledges to finance proposed, with a roster of benefits for contributions form £10 up to £250 (or the opportunity to bankroll an entire project). The Byliner part is that, once financed, the site also serves as the publishing platform–like it or not, as far as we can tell, and takes 50 percent […]
Digital Accelerates At Bloomsbury, Which Announces Digital Drama Library with Faber
Bloomsbury, which is readjusting its fiscal year, reported results for the 14 months ending February 28. Since the publisher already disclosed 12-month results recently, we’ll only delve into the highlights and what’s new. Their ebook sales continue to accelerate. They were £1.5 million for all of 2010, and have now registered £1.1 million for the first two months of 2011. Chief executive Nigel Newton says in the release, “This is an exciting time for Bloomsbury: demand for digital delivery, including e-books, is increasing significantly; it will change the publishing business model creating one worldwide market. The recent organisation change is […]