Following their big £844 million sale of the FT to Nikkei, Pearson acknowledged over the weekend that they are in talks with the co-owners of The Economist about selling their 50 percent stake in that organization as well. A Bloomberg source says that separate sale could yield another £400 million for Pearson. Separately, The Bookseller reports that Harper UK has negotiated a new sales agreement with Amazon, though they have no details. Italy’s RCS will discuss the buyout offer from Mondadori for their book publishing division at their July 30 board meeting to review the first-half 2015 results, La Republicca reported. […]
eNews
Amazon Customers Receive A Little Extra In eBook Settlement Credits
Although the original ebook settlement credits funded by the five settling publishers expired this spring, on Thursday many Amazon customers were notified of new, additional small credits issued to their accounts in connection with those same settlements. As the notices indicate, “This credit is in addition to the credit that you received from these settlements in March 2014.” Like the earlier credits, the new ones are provided on a use-it-or-lose-it basis, and any unused credits will expire in about a year, on July 31, 2016. These new credits come from a revision of the methodology that determined how much compensation […]
People, Etc.
Kaplan ceo Thomas Leppert has resigned, effective August 21, and will be replaced by Andrew Rosen, chairman of Kaplan and evp of its owner Graham Holdings Company. Lepper joined Kaplan in 2013 and “led the expansion of Kaplan’s highly successful international business and a turnaround at Kaplan Test Prep.” Chairman of the parent company Donald Graham said Leppert “has been a huge contributor to every aspect of Kaplan’s worldwide business. We are sorry to lose Tom, but understand why he wanted to leave; the pace of change at Kaplan will continue.” He adds, “No one knows Kaplan and its people better than Andy does.” Jeffrey […]
Houghton Moves to Some Kind of Agency
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt appears to have reached a new ebook sales agreement with Amazon and looks to be working with a modified form of agency across their ebook accounts now. Like their peers, the company declined to discuss their retailer terms. But the Amazon listings are a fairly reliable guide. All of HMH’s ebooks are now listed on Amazon with the telltale indication that “this price was set by the publisher.” From our analysis of multiple price listings, when Amazon lists only a print price and a Kindle price, they seem to be selling the ebook at HMH’s stipulated consumer digital […]
Corporate: Holtzbrinck Will Also Drop DRM In Germany; BookTrack Raises More
A meaningful portion of the big ebook publishers in Germany — where Kindle has lower market share than in many other developed ebook markets — is moving away from formal DRM to digital watermarking instead. Holtzbrinck’s trade imprints are the latest to make the move, as of August. Their lines include Droemer Knaur, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Rowohlt and S. Fischer. Bonnier Germany dropped DRM on their ebooks as of July 1, and other German publishers of note including dtv, Hoffman & Campe, and Luebbe gave up DRM earlier in the year. Separately, Booktrack has raised an additional $5 million in Series B financing, with the […]
People, Etc.
At HarperCollins Children’s, Alana Whitman has been promoted to senior manager, integrated marketing while Alison Noll moves up to assistant manager, integrated marketing operations. Obituary Owner of Merritt Bookstore in Millbrook, NY Scott Meyer died July 19. The store has been up for sale. Co-owner of nearby Oblong Books & Music said, “The work that he has done for books and authors and readers is unmeasurable.” Initiatives HarperCollins is the latest large publisher to launch an agent portal which will provide US-based agents with royalty statements (from June 2014 going forward), US sales data (broken down by sales channel) and anti-piracy information (as well as […]