BN disclosed for the first time in its quarterly SEC filing that on September 24 the company bought Tikatok for $2.3 million. Tikatok.com lets parents and their children write, illustrate, and publish stories into hardcover and paperback books. Barnes & Noble says it “plans to use Tikatok as part of its overall digital strategy, expanding the company’s reach to additional parents, educators and librarians.”Filing
eNews
A New Alliance for Weldon Owen; Goodreads Raises $2 Mil
File this one under press releases gone astray: a number of outlets have looked at a vaguely-worded announcement that “Weldon Owen Publishing has joined Bonnier Corp.” and concluded that Bonnier bought the packager/publisher. True enough–but the Bonnier Group has owned Weldon Owen since early 2006. What they mean to announce is that Weldon Owen has moved from the company’s book publishing division (where co-founder of the packager John Owen has been group publisher) over to their US magazine division, which is called Bonnier Corp. That group is run by Terry Snow, and was created by merging Snow’s group of enthusiast […]
Harper Will Hold Back eBooks on Five to 10 Titles A Month; Macmillan and Penguin May Delay from Time to Time
The Harper position comes from spokesperson Erin Crum, first cited by the AP. In a longer statement to the NYT, Crum says that in addition to withholding some releases, the house will experiment with other price and feature options for ebooks: “We are planning to introduce some of these titles, simultaneous with the hardcover, as enhanced e-books to be priced more in line with the hardcover. In addition, we will be testing very low-price and free e-books to gauge consumer appetite for a variety of digital price points and formats.” Separately, Harper ceo Brian Murray told the WSJ, “We’re going […]
Big Publishers Move to Broad Delay of eBook Releases
With delayed publication dates the only real weapon in publishers’ arsenals in fighting back against the $9.99 price point for high-profile new releases in ebook form, experimentation is getting ready to turn into policy in the year ahead. The WSJ reports that Simon & Schuster will delay ebook releases for about 35 “leading titles” early next year, and Hachette “has similar plans in the works.” Meanwhile, we’re aware of at least one other big six publisher contemplating the same kind of policy for the first quarter of next year. S&S ceo Carolyn Reidy tells the Journal: “The right place for […]
More eStuff: Hailing B&T's Forthcoming Platform; Nora Roberts' eGame; Penguin's Satellite Radio Show
Mike Shatzkin offers a preview look at Ray Kurzweil‘s new electronic “reading technology,” to be presented at the Consumer Electronics Show in January and to be marketed by Baker & Taylor under the name Blio. The payoff, he says, is that it makes “enhancing” ebooks easier than ever (if you think that’s important. But it only works on devices with an operating systems–like computers and iPhones, but not Kindle. B&T tells him they have “180,000 titles already committed to Blio, at least 50,000 of which will be available at launch.” Nora Roberts is releasing a downloadable game based on her […]
Simon & Schuster's Full List of Delayed eReleases
Simon & Schuster has provided a list of the new hardcover releases for the first four months of 2010 that will not be published in ebook form until four months after initial print publication. They write: “We believe this publishing sequence will benefit the performance of all the different formats in which these titles are published, and in the long term will contribute to a healthier retail environment for the greater book buying public.” JanuaryYOU: ON A DIET REVISED EDITION by Michael F. Roizen, M.D. and Mehmet C. Oz, M.D. (Free Press) STAR by Peter Biskind (S&S) THE HIGH SCHOOL […]