Catherine Onder will join Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children’s as svp and publisher on February 6, based in New York. Onder fills the position vacated when Betsy Groban left HMH last summer. Most recently she was editorial director at Bloomsbury Children’s. HMH trade president Ellen Archer says in the announcement, “She has a wealth of experience and a tremendous track record in middle reader and young adult publishing. Working with our gifted editors, she will direct and grow both our front and backlist business to new levels of excellence.” Onder comments, “I’m proud to join HMH with its rich tradition of children’s publishing of the […]
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Barnes & Noble Tells New Nook Tablet Owners to Stop Using Adapter, Pending Replacement and Possible Recall
An internal Barnes & Noble memo posted on 9to5 Google and cited by a store employee on Reddit on Friday showed a January 9 advisory telling store managers to return all the recently-released $50 Nook Tablets to the company’s distribution center. At the same time, the tablets are listed as “not available” on the company’s web site. Shortly thereafter, the company said in a brief statement that they are investigating three cases involving “the adapter casing breaking apart while still in the socket.” They say that “out of an abundance of caution, we recommend that customers stop using the adapter until we […]
S&S Children’s Authors Protest Milo Deal, IDPF Dissidents Keep Trying
A group of over 160 children’s book authors and illustrators have signed on to a letter to Simon & Schuster ceo Carolyn Reidy objecting to the house’s book deal with Milo Yiannopoulos. The effort began as a conversation among Erin Murphy Literary Agency clients under contract with Simon & Schuster and “quickly became a national dialogue across agencies and genres.” They write, in part: “Threshold has placed Simon & Schuster’s considerable reputation and weight behind one of the most prominent faces of the newly repackaged white supremacist/white nationalist movement and financially supported a man who routinely denigrates, verbally attacks, and directs dangerous internet doxxing and hate campaigns against […]
HarperCollins Buys Out Ediouro In Brazil; Firebrand Launches Eloquence on Alert
HarperCollins has bought out Ediouro, its partner in HarperCollins Brasil, to take sole ownership of the venture. Harper Brasil is also moving its headquarters to Rua da Quitanda in Rio de Janeiro’s financial center. CEO Brian Murray said in the announcement: “While we have enjoyed a successful relationship with Ediouro, we are very pleased to take full ownership of HarperCollins Brasil. We see Brazil as an area of growth both for titles from our global imprints being published into the region, as well as for local authors. We are excited about this new structure and the new home for the organization.” […]
Rakuten Kobo Acquires the Tolino Tech Platform from Deutsche Telekom
Rakuten Kobo announced on Tuesday they have signed contracts to acquire the Tolino ebook technology platform serving the German-language ebook market from founding partner Deutsche Telekom at the end of January 2017, pending approval from the German Federal Cartel Office. (That paperwork was filed December 22.) Kobo will join the three bookseller partners Hugendubel, Thalia and Weltbild. CEO Michael Tamblyn says in the announcement, “Together with our partners from the German book trade, we intend to continue to enhance the tolino ecosystem for its many dedicated customers. This acquisition allows us to bring Rakuten Kobo’s experience with collaborating with book retailers around […]
Kindle Unlimited: The Trend Continues, and The House Is On Top
Amazon made their monthly retroactive announcement of how much money they have decided to allocate to authors who participate in Kindle Unlimited, with November’s bounty following the pattern from the prior month. The pool was boosted by $100,000, to $16.3 million, while the total “pages read” declined, to roughly 3.032 billion (down from 3.122 billion in October, and 3.197 billion in September). On online forums, authors continue to complain that Amazon has not fully fixed glitches in their page counting software. Theoretically that’s leading more authors to opt out of publishing exclusively through Kindle and participating in KU. Increasingly, however, the […]