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 […]
eNews
Scouting the Bad and the Very Bad in Kindle’s Reader-Powered Platform
Katy Waldman at Slate has a look at some of the featured titles in the recent Kindle Scout initiative, where readers are supposed to sample excerpts from unpublished manuscripts and recommend them for publication through Kindle Press. Her theme is: “This kind of writing is unabashed. It is breathtakingly, gloriously bad. And it raises a question: What do we mean when we talk about bad books?” In particular, Waldman writes, “I am not here to talk about the democratizing heroism of self-publishers and crowdsourcers. Or about the growing centrality of the consumer, who is able to customize her reading experience by […]
People, Etc.
Eerdmans has hired Lil Copan as senior acquisitions editor, general trade. She was at Abingdon Press most recently. A group of senior management and board members have joined in a management buyout of the Peter Lang Academic Publishing Group from the Peter Lang Children’s Trust. The deal is expected to close by mid-2015. The new management team comprises Claude Béglé as chairman of the board, Kelly Shergill as CEO and deputy chairman, Vanessa Weber as CFO and Abdurahman Kaymaz as head of warehouse and logistics. Stuart Wilkins, who led the process on behalf of the Trust, said in the announcement: “The Trust Board recognized that their […]
People, Etc.
Julia Pastore will join Harper One as executive editor on March 2. She has been executive editor at Demos Health, prior to which she was senior editor at Crown Archetype. Michele Cobb has joined the Audio Publishers Association as executive director. She currently owns MLC Consulting, which provides PR, sales, marketing and business development services for the publishing industry, and was previously vp, sales & marketing for AudioGo. At Random House Children’s Books, Maggie Gibson has been promoted to production associate. Deputy editor of the Boston Globe’s Idea section Amanda Katz announced on Twitter earlier this week she is “moving to a […]
Announcements: Quarto Buys Ivy; Maya Angelou Postage Stamp; Kindle Scout Launch List; and More
Quarto Publishing has agreed to acquire The Ivy Press for up to £1.3 million plus the assumption of up to £200,000 of debt, pending approval from the press’s lender. The unit will become part of Quarto’s international co-editions division. Founded in 1996, Ivy Press has been distributed by Thames & Hudson since 2012. Co-founder and co-owner Jenny Manstead used to work for Quarto, and is married to one of Quarto’s non executive directors, Bob Morley. Manstead says, “This is exactly the right move for Ivy at the right time. Becoming part of Quarto gives us a solid, secure platform from which to develop our publishing program with […]
Chegg to Outsource Print Textbook Business to Ingram
Building substantially on an initiative that began last August, Chegg.com will transition the handling of all print textbook inventory over to Ingram under a renewable, five-year agreement as the company that started as a textbook rental play moves towards becoming an all-digital “student hub.” (Digital textbook rentals will become Chegg’s biggest business, in which they compete directly with Ingram’s CourseSmart, among many other players.) Chegg is positioning the move as a full reboot of the company, whose stock has languished since it went public in late 2013 — in part because Chegg has lost money since launching in 2007, and those […]