AppAdvice blogger Alexander Vaughn purportedly got a look at “a not-so-NDA-complying preview” of the iBookstore in which 27 of the top 32 selling books – and all of the top 10 books – are priced at $9.99. The highest priced book, Jackie Collins’ Poor Little Bitch Girl (St. Martin’s), is priced at $12.99, which is in keeping with CEO John Sargent’s prior comments about how Macmillan titles will be priced.AppAdvice In other e-news, Skiff CEO Gil Fuchsberg announced during a session at CTIA that Random House and S&S are among the content partners for Hearst’s e-reading platform.moconews.net Rich Futures’ Clive […]
eNews
Random House Stays Off iPad, For Now; Kobo Launches Dedicated e-Reader; and More eNews
Random House remains the most conspicuously absent publisher from the iPad, and ceo Markus Dohle indicates to the FT he “did not exclude the possibility of reaching a deal” before April 3, though it remains unlikely. Dohle said Apple’s proposition means “changes, in particular for our stakeholders,” indicating that further discussions with authors and agents are needed. In restating the obvious, they write he is “treading carefully, as Apple’s pricing regime could erode established publishing practices.” Which is the whole point. In early February, Random House president Madeline McIntosh told booksellers about a series of concerns that publishers “have no […]
Perseus and Workman Strike iPad Deals
Yesterday the NYT reported that both Perseus and Workman had signed on with Apple to make ebooks available for the iPad, meaning, from what’s been previously reported about Apple’s contract, that they have agreed to the company’s agency model and its most favored nations requirement. Both moves were confirmed first by Apple’s side, and while Workman hasn’t issued anything on the record yet, Perseus CEO David Steinberger said in a statement that the company was “working with Apple to make books from the Perseus Books Group and the independent publishers we represent available on the iBookstore starting on April 3. […]
Kindle for iPad on the Way, But Not In Time for Launch; More on B&N iPad app
Amazon gave the NYT a sneak preview of its Kindle-for-iPad app, which touts “two new ways for people to view their entire e-book collection, including one view where large images of book covers are set against a backdrop of a silhouetted figure reading under a tree.” Screenshots are available at Amazon’s website, but the app, which also “allows readers to slowly turn pages with their fingers”, will not be available in time for the iPad April 3 launch date because Amazon hasn’t been able to test it on a real device. Instead, according to VP for Kindle Ian Freed, Amazon […]
People, Awards, Distribution and More Announcements
Matt Martz has been promoted to associate editor at St. Martin’s, continuing to report to Kelley Ragland, editorial director of Minotaur. Brigid Pasulka won the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for her debut novel A LONG LONG TIME AGO & ESSENTIALLY TRUE. Columbia University awarded the Bancroft history prize to three books: Linda Gordon’s Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits; Woody Holton’s Abigail Adams; and Margaret Jacobs’s White Mother to a Dark Race: Settler Colonialism, Maternalism, and the Removal of Indigenous Children in the American West and Australia, 1880-1940. Penguin Children’s announced a one-million-copy first printing for the May release of John […]
Buy Button Bingo
With the launch of the iPad and its accompanying iBookstore just over two weeks away, the transition to an agency model for ebooks remains both contentious and uncertain. It is not at all clear whether any significant number of independent publishers will be signed with Apple and available for direct sale in their store on launch, just as it remains uncertain whether other publishers will experience interruption in their business with Amazon as Macmillan did while negotiating their transition to the new model. At least one independent publisher of scale was told categorically by Amazon in a recent phone call […]