At Gotham/Avery, Lindsay Gordon has been promoted to associate director of publicity. Beth Ineson has been appointed to the new role of executive director, book marketing, sales, and operations at Boston Common Press, starting March 3. Most recently she was head of field sales at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Ineson will oversee expansion of the marketing and distribution of efforts of the Cook’s Illustrated, America’s Test Kitchen, and Cook’s Country lines of cookbooks. Annie Kelley has returned to Schwartz & Wade Books as senior editor. Previously she was youth editor at Booklist. Simon & Schuster UK will combine its adult and […]
eNews
Sony to Transfer North American Reader Store to Kobo
As we had heard a while ago, in conjunction with their quarterly earnings release Sony confirmed that they are turning over the North American Reader market to Kobo. “Sony’s Reader Store customers and their current ebook libraries will transfer to the Kobo ecosystem starting in late March,” they say in their announcement. Kobo will service Sony Reader device owners and will be the ebook provider for Sony’s continuing lines of tablets and smartphones in the US and Canada. The Kobo app will be pre-loaded onto “select” Sony phones and tablets. Sony effectively abandoned further development of the US market last September, […]
Kindle Worlds, Kindle Words
Amazon announced more licenses for their Kindle Worlds fan fiction program, including GI Joe (from Hasbro); the TV shows Pretty Little Liars and Ravenswood (expanding their relationship with Warner’s Alloy Entertainment); and works from authors Markus Sakey and Theresa Ragan. The Seattle Times noticed an interesting restriction in Hasbro’s license. The Rhode-Island based company requires that “G.I. Joe’s comrade, Snake Eyes, cannot be a portrayed as a fan of the New York Yankees.” The paper takes a broader look at Amazon Publishing in connection with the announcement. The new non-specific statistic is Amazon Publishing head Jeff Belle saying that “the […]
Rakuten Installs Japanese CEO At Kobo, and More People News
Kobo’s parent company Rakuten has installed Takahito “Taka” Aiki as the new ceo of Kobo, effective immediately, with founder and ceo Michael Serbinis stepping aside into the role of vice chairman. Aiki was ceo of another Rakuten subsidiary, the Japanese telecom unit Fusion Communications. In a statement reported on by the Financial Post, Rakuten said, “Taka brings to the role a wealth of experience in building and growing successful projects and companies, and has built his career on achieving ambitious goals and forging strong teams.” It is said that he will relocate to Kobo’s headquarters in Toronto. According to his […]
Corporate: Little Brown UK Buys Constable & Robinson; Simon & Schuster Launches Business Book Site
Little Brown UK has purchased Constable & Robinson, which will continue to operate as its own entity under managing director Pete Duncan, who will report to David Shelley. Nova Jayne Robinson indicates to the Bookseller that the conversations began some time last year, before the death of previous chairman Nick Robinson in September. “Nick and I shared the view that we could not imagine a better home.” C&R had been a member of the UK’s Independent Alliance, and they have been the UK distributor for Skyhorse as well as New Harbinger and New Holland. Simon & Schuster has launched 250 Words, […]
Context: Looking Across Amazon, Google Play, iTunes and More
Most publishing-focused media is looking solely at Amazon’s fourth quarter earnings report from yesterday, but Google also reported earnings Thursday evening. The search giant’s sales and profits both rose 17 percent. Their sales are smaller than Amazon’s (about $17 billion, versus $25.5 billion) — but they had profits of over $4 billion (which is more than Amazon’s lifetime earnings). More importantly, with Google pushing their consolidated Play store and Apple continuing to grow iTunes sales, it’s time (long past time, actually) for us all to be looking across the digital media competitors. Amazon‘s total “media” sales for the year were […]