When Macmillan ceo John Sargent said in a letter Friday morning that discounting of their ebooks under the settlement with Department of Justice “will take effect quickly,” he really meant it. The court filing is more blunt on the matter: “Macmillan must allow its e-book retailers to discount within three business days of agreeing to the settlement, even if it has not formalized new contracts with retailers.” DOJ writes that “the proposed Macmillan Final Judgment does not give Macmillan a choice” in notifying and renegotiating with retailers–as the original settlement had done–“to provide for more prompt relief to consumers.” But it’s […]
eNews
Apple Self-Publishing Promotion Gets Outsized Promotion; Amazon Gets Legal Protection for System that Might Not be Legal
It’s easy to lose perspective when everyone is covering book publishing but there is no common context or compass. This week’s big example is Apple’s iBookstore extension of a merchandising pilot from their stores in Australia, Canada and the UK to the US: a promotional carousel of about 70 self-published books, dubbed Breakout Books. It’s getting home page rotation in the iBookstore for “at least two weeks” and then will be a less prominent standing category. Highlighted on the Smashwords blog, this modest promotion has become national news, as part of coverage of The Revolution. (Most self-published titles in the […]
Corporate: Tisch Raised BN Stake to 8.1 Percent; Amazon to Mint Their Own Virtual Money
In an annual SEC filing Tuesday, investor Daniel Tisch disclosed that at some point last year he raised his stake in Barnes & Noble from 5.1 percent (originally disclosed in January 2012) to 8.1 percent, or nearly 4.9 million shares, the holdings he controlled as December 31. Two million shares are registered to Tisch’s personal investment company TowerView, while the rest of the stake is held by Four Partners, another investment company owned by all four Tisch brothers and run by Thomas Tisch, though Daniel Tisch has “sole voting power and sole investment power” over the entire BN holding. Separately, […]
People: Firebrand Acquires Tallent’s eBook Architects, and More
Firebrand Technologies has acquired eBook Architects, the ebook design and production company founded by Joshua Tallent. eBook Architects will continue business as usual from their Austin, TX office, serving their existing customers as well as helping Firebrand to build an “end-to-end service.” Firebrand ceo Fran Toolan says in the announcement, “Working as partners over the last few years, we’ve seen that quality and customer service are the first priorities for Joshua and his team, as they are for ours. Bringing design expertise in-house allows us to fully serve our current and future customers, and furthers our mission of providing services at […]
September Sales Rose Modestly As eBook Percentage Dropped Again (And K-12 Suffered)
The AAP released their monthly StatShot report for September 2012, with data from close to 1200 publishers, and as they state, it “reflects the trends we’ve seen all year: continued publishing growth overall with significant increases in children’s/young adult (especially eBook format) and slight erosion in religion publishing.” For September, however, children’s and YA books fell 4.2 percent (the big growth came earlier in the year) at $145.6 million overall, while net adult book sales of $468.1 million were up 2.8 percent–but that was due to reduced returns rather than higher gross shipments. So for the month, net trade sales […]
Stephen King Rides Another eBook Bullet; Trident Media Offers eBook Services to Other Agents; Rosetta Celebrates Growth Year
Stephen King has published a new personal essay, “Guns”, exclusively through the Kindle Store, as a 99 cent ebook. (The listed publisher is King’s Philtrum Press.) “I think the issue of an America awash in guns is one every citizen has to think about,” said King in the announcement. “If this helps provoke constructive debate, I’ve done my job. Once I finished writing ‘Guns’ I wanted it published quickly, and Kindle Singles provided an excellent fit.” Kindle Singles editor David Blum said King finished the essay “last Friday morning, and by that night we had accepted it and scheduled for […]