Amazon instituted new selling and shipping rules for third party media sellers that will increase the fees reaped by the etailer, and effectively end of the economic viability of selling so-called “penny books” on the site. As of March 1, 2017, the fees for selling media products, including books, will rise in two ways. The per item fee will increase to $1.80, up from $1.35 per item, and going forward “will be a fixed fee rate and not variable.” Additionally, the referral fee they charge will go from 15 percent of the item price to 15 percent of the total sales (including […]
Publisher services
Briefs: More James Patterson Library Grants; DRM-Free Star Trek eBooks; and More
For the second year in a row, James Patterson will award $1.75 million in grants (of $1,000 to $10,000) on a rolling basis throughout the year to school libraries. Once again the initiative is run in partnership with Scholastic Reading Club. Aligned with the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, Pocket Books has announced the release of more than 700 tie-in novels and novelizations in DRM-free ebook editions. Pocket president Louise Burke says in the release, “We’re excited to re-introduce many classic stories and to enable discovery and the ease of purchase that DRM-free provides.” New visitors to the site will be eligible for a […]
Briefs: Diversion Spins Off Radius Book Group; Marie Force Launches Publisher; and More
Diversion Publishing is launching a new self-publishing division, Radius Book Group, led by vp, business development Mary Cummings and managing editor Fiona Hallowell. Radius will sell aspiring authors packages ranging from DIY options through Ingram Spark to comprehensive publishing services. Bestselling self-published author Marie Force is launching a new contemporary romance company, Jack’s House Publishing. Force says in the announcement, “Jack’s House came about after many authors contacted me to ask when I was going to get into the publishing business.” She notes, “I had all the players already in place after four years of running my Formatting Fairies business, which I founded […]
Writer’s Digest Tries Self-Publishing Again With BookBaby; RosettaBooks Expands Into Print; and More
Writer’s Digest quietly severed ties with Author Solutions, which provided the back-end to its self-publishing service Abbott Press , earlier this year. Now the company has teamed up with BookBaby for a different self-publishing program under the name Blue Ash Publishing. The new program takes pain to distinguish itself from the earlier one, touting “100 percent net earnings” once retailers are paid their percentages, and “no commission” taken by BookBaby, “total creative control” including full rights ownership to the author, “exclusive education programs” that include weekly newsletters, and for those who pay more, access to Writers Market, and other digital […]
LBF Announcements: Isaacson’s Innovators; Chevalier’s Othello; Shatzkin and McCarthy’s Digital Marketing Agency
Simon & Schuster likes to officially announce their Walter Isaacson books at the London Book Fair. Acquired some time ago, and already previewed online by the author, they will publish Isaacson’s THE INNOVATORS: How a Group of Inventors, Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution, in world English on October 7. The book “focuses on the dozen or so most significant breakthroughs and the people who made them: the computer, programming, the transistor, the microchip, video games, the internet, the personal computer, software, the web. The book opens with Ada Lovelace, who wrote the first computer algorithm, and continues […]
Briefs: Trudeau Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison; Carnegie & Greenaway Awards Shortlists; and More
Allen Guelzo has won the inaugural Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize in Military History for GETTYSBURG: The Last Invasion (Knopf). The $50,000 prize was announced Monday night at a ceremony held at the New-York Historical Society. The Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medal shortlists were announced this morning, with the winners to be named on June 23. Anne Fine, Rebecca Stead, and Susan Cooper landed on the Carnegie list, while Jon Klassen appears twice on the Greenaway shortlist for THIS IS NOT MY HAT and THE DARK (text by Lemony Snicket). Onetime bestselling weight-loss “guru” and infomercial staple Kevin Trudeau was sentenced to 10 […]