HarperCollins is inviting votes from the public as part of their BookSmash development challenge announced in June. The 20 submitted applications can be viewed online now, and winners will be named October 10.
eNews
Agency Lite: And Then There Were Five
Just to confirm what we all knew what was coming — since no one else has formally said it out loud yet — by all indications Penguin Random House has completed the execution of new ebook contracts with major trading partners. As required by the court, Random House is complying with the terms of Penguin’s ebook pricing settlements, and ebook titles from both divisions are available for discounting by retailers now. We have no direct confirmation of when the new Random House contracts were implemented, but Amazon price-change tracking via our Publishers Marketplace Book Tracker tool shows a number of […]
Barnes & Noble Postpones International Rollout Again
Barnes & Noble’s promised international expansion of Nook stores has been quietly postponed again. The last time the company delayed their timeline was in late July, in their delayed annual SEC report, which stated, “the company now expects expansion into these 10 markets to be accomplished by the end of 2013.” Now their new SEC report for the first quarter of fiscal 2014 pushes that target forward another 4 months, saying “it now expects expansion into these 10 markets to be accomplished by the end of fiscal 2014.” As a result of the continued delays, they may face a financial penalty […]
Sourcebooks In Publishing Partnership with Wattpad, and More
Sourcebooks is partnering with online writing site Wattpad, to edit and publish selection YA stories in both print and ebook editions under their YA imprint Sourcebooks Fire. The partnership is an element of Wattpad’s recent fan funding experiment, where writers can enlist fans to support their publication. Among other things, the “fan funding” component will help drive pre-orders for the books. The Wattpad versions of the published stories will remain available on the site. Sourcebooks ceo Dominique Raccah says, “This partnership is all about helping connect talented authors with readers.” Wattpad ceo Alan Lau adds, “It’s a natural fit, as […]
More Kindling
After a brief false start online, Amazon announced the refreshed versions of their Kindle Paperwhite devices yesterday, with the more basic model available as of September 30. The features and specs are lavishly presented online, so we won’t go to great lengths here. The most interesting thing to us is that this “sixth generation” device sells at the same price as its predecessor — $139 for the wi-fi model (without ads) — despite nearly 6 years of “predictions” that these ereaders will soon be free. The screen, which Amazon says is better than ever, now uses “Carta e-paper technology” rather than […]
Amazon’s Plan For Inexpensive eBook Upgrades for Print Book Purchasers
We had heard from publishers that Amazon was working on a bundling program to offer inexpensive ebook “upgrades” to customers who had already purchased print books, and today the company pre-announced their awkwardly-named but otherwise-inspired Kindle MatchBook program. With relatively limited adoption from publishers — about 10,000 titles, Amazon says — the advance press release also serves as a “call to all authors and publishers to enroll their books.” HarperCollins is the one participating publisher named by Kindle executive Russ Grandinetti. The program is set to launch in October. Price has been the sticking point for most publishers — with […]