Hachette Book Group is celebrating making Crain’s Best Places to Work in NYC for the second year in a row, rising to No. 19 (from 24 a year ago). Norton has named Edward Crutchley the next managing director of its UK subsidiary, effective February 1, 2011, after Alan Cameron retires. Cameron is the firm’s founding managing sirector, joining Norton in 1979. Crutchley has been most recently regional sales director, institutional online sales at John Wiley UK, which he joined when the parent company purchased Blackwell. (Norton uses Wiley UK’s warehouse.) Steven Wilson has joined Book Sales Inc. New York as […]
eNews
Google eBooks Launches Today
Google’s long-awaited, long-promised ebook service begins rolling out today in the United States, unveiled in a blog post by product manager Abe Murray, leaving behind its pre-release moniker of Google Editions and now known simply as Google eBooks–one sign of how the world has changed since the web giant first started discussing selling “perpetual online access” to books in 2006. As previously indicated by the company, they expect to launch in other territories in early 2011. The new ebookstore is located at books.google.com/ebooks, but it is launching “throughout the day,” so we are advised that not all visitors will necessarily […]
More Vaporware? Txtr Said to be Scrppd
Slashgear says that a former employee of Germany’s Txtr says that their planned ereader “has been quietly ditched while the company attempts to work on its software ebookstore business.”Slashgear
Amazon Unintentionally Drives Smashwords Move to Agency Pricing
eBook distributor Smashwords announced today in a posting from founder Mark Coker that as of today all of their titles are being sold on an agency basis. “Our authors and publishers spoke (and some wrote, screamed, begged and politely asked), and we listened,” Coker writes. Smashwords had been using a hybrid model–selling on an agency basis to the iBookstore and Diesel, and selling wholesale to Barnes & Noble, Sony and Kobo. Those three have all agreed to the new agency pricing, with Coker writing: “I think each retail partner decided on their own that what is best for Smashwords authors […]
Yes Virginia, There Is a Google eBook Service
Google has been saying most recently that they will launch their new ebook service in the US before the end of the year, and last night the WSJ reported that the company is “in the final stages of launching its long-awaited e-book retailing venture”–missing the first night of Hanukkah, but with a good shot at arriving before Christmas. But “publishers cautioned [the service] has been delayed before and could be delayed again.” ABA members have begun executing contracts to participate, and numerous publishers have told us they have signed on, and “several publishers said they were exchanging files with Google–a […]
Rosetta Adds Children’s eBooks, In Another Amazon Exclusive
eBook publisher Rosetta Books is expanding into children’s books, having released digital versions of the entire line of 73 Rainbow Magic books for the US market. As with some of their previous releases, they are sold exclusively through the Kindle store for the next year, in exchange for what Rosetta founder Arthur Klebanoff calls “prominent site promotion.” Rosetta licensed the ebooks from HIT Entertainment, which controls the property, and obtained ebook rights to future titles as well. Klebanoff says that will comprise “at least two new series of seven books each annually.” Scholastic has been–and remains–the print publisher of the […]