Chronicle Books has partnered with Top Partners Co, Ltd to launch Chronicle Books Japan. The new entity will be the exclusive distributor of Chronicle Books products in the Japanese market, including English language books, stationery and gifts as well as Japanese language editions, and will also establish branded boutiques in a number of flagship Tsutaya Mega bookstores throughout Japan starting in May and continuing through the end of 2016. “We were looking for the next wave of publishing culture,” Top Partners ceo Kazuo Nakanishi said in the announcement. “Chronicle Books is exactly what we have long admired and are looking […]
eNews
Harper Readies Return to Full Agency
Following the April 1 Business Insider report that implied Amazon was losing patience with HarperCollins in negotiating a new sales agreement, Publishers Lunch has learned that Harper is preparing to return to full agency for ebook sales next week. Multiple retailers report that Harper has informed them their selling terms will change as of Tuesday, April 14. (The change is actually effective midnight Pacific time, rather than Eastern. Amazon would be among those companies that naturally end their business day on Pacific time.) Harper is requiring retailers to implement all price changes within 24 hours. Going forward Harper will require that their ebooks […]
Oyster Adds eBookstore
Oyster has launched an ebookstore to accompany its existing subscription offering. The ebookstore will sell books by existing subscription partners HarperCollins, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster — as well as the two major subscription holdouts, Penguin Random House and Hachette. The company touts their launch as “the most significant entrance into the retail book market in the past five years,” though Oyster’s subscription competitor Scribd has sold ebooks for years. For now, the expansion lets Oyster display and merchandise a wider selection of titles. Participating subscription titles are highlighted as “read for free,” available for separate purchase after you click through, while […]
German Giant Media-Saturn Looks to Build On Bankrupt Txtr
Some publishers were recently informed via email that Germany’s txtr, which filed for bankruptcy in late January, will be adopted as the ebook platform for the big consumer electronics retailing group Media-Saturn-Holding as of the beginning of April. (Described as the Best Buy of Germany and/or Europe, the group’s Media Markt, Saturn and Redcoon stores have annual sales of over 20 billion euros.) It’s a logical marriage of convenience, in that txtr was already working with MSH on their ebook plans. MSH is currently working to turn JUKE! — an established streaming music subscription service — into a much broader digital […]
No Joke — An Apparent Amazon Source Uses Business Insider to Pressure Harper Negotiations
Many online stories today need to be taken with a grain of a salt, but the Business Insider story about Amazon and HarperCollins posted Tuesday is apparently meant seriously. An unidentified source whose perspective makes them connected to Amazon tells BI (in which Jeff Bezos is an investor), “The contract between ‘Big Five’ book publisher HarperCollins and Amazon is about to expire, and HarperCollins is refusing to sign an agreement with the new terms that Amazon is asking.” The source also threatens on the bookseller’s behalf: “If HarperCollins and Amazon don’t come to an agreement, no print or digital HarperCollins […]
Rakuten to Buy OverDrive for $410 Million
The two companies announced in press releases that Rakuten will pay “a total consideration of $410 million in cash” to buy OverDrive. They say OverDrive’s EBITDA was $25 million for 2014, which amounts to a very hefty multiple of earnings that Rakuten is paying — but the Japanese-based company says that with the purchase it “expects the EBITDA of its global eBook business will be close to breakeven in 2015.” The deal is scheduled to close in April. OverDrive’s majority shareholder is the private equity firm Insight Venture Partners, which acquired that stake after making an unspecified “major investment” in 2010. (The specific […]