In the UK, Faber has entered in an audio co-publishing venture with Canongate (which acquired audio publisher CSA in 2010). Canongate will produce and sell audio editions of up to about a dozen Faber titles annually, the Bookseller reports. (Faber will continue to publish audio versions of their poetry books independently.) In the US, Hay House has started a blogger review program, BookNook, that is similar to Thomas Nelson’s Book Sneeze initiative. They aim to create “one central place for bloggers to share their thoughts and experiences about Hay House products,” providing free review copies in exchange for “an honest […]
Web marketing/promotion
eNews: Target Confirms Kindle Removal; Coehlo’s 99-Cent Backlist Promotion; Bundled Nooks With HMH Textbooks; and More
Target confirmed on Wednesday the report we mentioned in Wednesday’s issue indicating that that 1,800-store chain will stop carrying Kindle devices. Company executives wrote to vendors in January to protest moves such as Amazon’s price check app: “What we aren’t willing to do is let online-only retailers use our brick-and-mortar stores as a showroom for their products and undercut our prices.” Target was first big mass merchant to start stocking Kindle products in 2010. Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Staples are among the big retail chains that still sell Kindle products in their stores. Earlier this week Paulo Coehlo announced on […]
eNews:Skoobe eBook Subscription Service in Germany; Penguin and The Economist Join Forces for Digital Shorts;
In Germany, von Holtzbrinck and Verlagsgruppe Random House are backing a new ebook subscription venture, Skoobe, where customers pay 9.99 euros a month to borrow 2 ebooks in that 30-day period (with unlimited access to all content only between now and March 1, 2013.) Publishers supplying content so far include Droemer, DVA, Fischer, Goldmann, Heyne, Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Lübbe, Luchterhand and Rowohlt. The Skoobe app is available for free for iOS devices, with an Android version to come at a later date. Penguin and the Economist (both owned by Pearson) are joining forces to publish a collection of reports entitled […]
eNews: Dutton Relaunches Guilt-Edged Mysteries As Digital Imprint
Dutton will join the digital imprint movement later this summer by relaunching its Dutton Guilt-Edged Mysteries line, which published hardboiled and noir titles from 1947 to 1956, as an ebook-only venture. The new program, overseen by Dutton editor-in-chief Ben Sevier, will publish stories and novellas ranging between 10,000 and 50,000 words on a monthly basis and will launch with NPR news editor Krishnadev Calamur’s debut novella Murder in Mumbai. “The re-launch of Dutton Guilt-Edged Mysteries is a fitting tribute to Mickey Spillane, one of the 20th century’s bestselling and most beloved novelists,” Sevier said in a statement. The new imprint […]
eNews: Safari Acquires Threepress and Ibis, and More
Threepress Consulting and their Ibis Reader have been acquired by Safari Online. Threepress founder Liza Daly (who created our first BEA web app) writes: “Safari provides us with an unparalleled reserve of content, sales team, marketing savvy, and publisher relationships. We’re bringing our focus on standards, accessibility, interactivity, and emerging technology.” Daly will be vp of engineering at Safari. The company writes, “They’re joining us as part of an acquisition that brings a rich set of web-based ebook reading technology to Safari, along with a talented engineering team that includes some of the world’s foremost engineers working with EPUB, ebooks, […]
eNews: Chabon Criticizes Standard eBook Royalty As Open Road Publishes His Backlist; New Cookbook Apps;and More
Open Road Integrated Media will publish five backlist titles by Michael Chabon starting today, including novels THE MYSTERIES OF PITTSBURGH and THE WONDER BOYS. In an interview with the AP Chabon called the 50 percent royalty Open Road offered for the books “fair and generous” while took issue with industry standard (which the AP said was “around 25 percent” but which we take to mean 25 percent of net proceeds) for ebook royalties as offered by current publisher HarperCollins and past publisher Random House, which will publish the ebook edition of THE ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER AND CLAY next June. “I […]