The story about the sales tax implications for publishers selling under the agency model is starting to spread. Further ratifying our earlier piece in which we explained that individual publishers have different interpretations of states where they have “nexus” and are required to collect and pay sales tax, Amazon has now added a list by publisher of states where sales tax will be added to purchases. The etailer’s own digital services arm collects tax only for Kentucky, North Dakota, New York and Washington. Hachette Digital, Inc. collects tax in 24 states; Macmillan does so in 21 states (unlike Hachette’s list, […]
eNews
People, Announcements, Etc.
Wylie O’Sullivan has been promoted to senior editor at Free Press, where she started in 2001 as an editorial assistant. Christina Biamonte will join Sony’s Digital Reading Business Division as new Content Account Manager, eBooks. She has been Subsidiary Rights Manager at Houghton Mifflin. At Sony, she will forge new publisher relationships and act as relationship manager for existing publishing partners. On Tuesday, Zondervan laid off 30 employees as part of a “streamlining [of] our operations,” with a total workforce of 374 people. At the same time, the company is hiring for its digital and multimedia operations, with the Grand […]
People and More
At Scribner Anna deVries has been promoted to associate editor. Georgia Cool will join Mary Evans Inc. as an agent on April 19. In addition to developing her own list, she will oversee foreign rights for the agency. She has been assistant editor at Farrar, Straus and, prior to that, was at William Morris Endeavor Entertainment. John Rudolph‘s position as executive editor at Putnam Children’s was eliminated with the arrival of Jennifer Besser and he was laid off. He can be reached at: jrwr123@yahoo.com. Though some publishers are having trouble reaching Apple to try to make arrangements to sell directly […]
Strong Demand Makes Apple Delay International iPad Release
Apple said today they will announce pricing and begin to take pre-orders for international versions of the iPad starting May 10, for delivery at the end of the month, a one-month delay from the original plan. “We know that many international customers waiting to buy an iPad will be disappointed by this news, but we hope they will be pleased to learn the reason–the iPad is a runaway success in the US thus far.” The company says that US “demand is far higher than we predicted and will likely continue to exceed our supply over the next several weeks.” They […]
Life Under Agency: No Solution Yet for Wholesalers and Sales Tax
The Diesel eBookstore started blogging recently, in part to communicate with customers about the business interruptions from the transition to the agency model by at least some publishers. They reported that “negotiations between our distributors and the Agency Five publishers are taking a lot longer than expected” and “there is no current ETA” on when those files will be reinstated and sales-tax compliant. As they note in their most recent post, per our report from last week, after the agency titles are restored Diesel will need to collect sales and forward it to publishers, who will remit and report to […]
eNews: Confirming Best Buy and nook; A Nokia eReader and Google Tablet?
Barnes & Noble officially confirmed last week’s report that Best Buy will carry the nook ereader as of April 18. The new part is the indication that this will be an “exclusive” partnership.Release Separately, the NYT says that Nokia (which recently hired Matt Shatz from Random House) is “planning to enter the digital book market through a slate-cum-e-reader.” They reiterate that Google is “exploring the idea of building its own slate, an e-reader that would function like a computer.” Google CEO Eric Schmidt “told friends at a recent party in Los Angeles about the new device, which would exclusively run […]