In line with our report in June that UK-based Osprey Group was looking to sell non-core components including the Angry Robot fiction line and the ailing Watkins acquisition (along with considering offers for the entire company), the Bookseller reports that the company has indeed sold Watkins, Angry Robot and Nourish to businessman Etan Ilfeld. And it turns out that Osprey had quarantined those three lines in bankruptcy administration “in order to protect the rest of the group,” though in June, when they shut down the Strange Chemistry and and Exhibit A fiction lines the company said “the core Angry Robot […]
Finance
European Court Approves Lower Taxes for eBooks; Management Buyout At Book People
Long after Luxembourg and France decided for themselves, the European Court has ruled that it really is ok for individual countries to charge lower Value Added Tax rates on ebooks. Reduced VAT was always allowed on printed books, but the statute never mentioned ebooks — which most countries took to mean that ebooks had to be charged normal, full VAT. Luxembourg was the notable exception, turning it into the server farm for digital media in Europe, and then France joined in more recently. The court came to the clarifying decision in a case brought by Finland over the difference between print […]
Vook Acquires Byliner
After months of looking for a buyer and barely operating in the meantime, Byliner.com has been acquired by Vook. The purchase is somewhat of a full-circle pivot for Vook, which began in 2009 by producing “enhanced” ebooks with embedded videos. In the announcement, the company says, “With the acquisition of Byliner, Vook will support Byliner’s existing titles and acquire new projects for release under the Byliner imprint.” (All of the people who drove Byliner’s editorial connections that allowed them to partner with some marquee authors and institutions have left the company, however. From Vook’s author FAQ, the line will be run […]
Corporate: Harper eBooks In China, Amazon Expands In London, and Good Books Auction
HarperCollins announced an agreement with JD.com and China National Publications Import and Export (Group) Corporation to sell English-language ebooks in China. It is “the first time the company has made its e-books directly available to consumers in China through a local retailer,” though JD.com has partnered with Harper in selling their print books in China for some time. The initiative will start with approximately 800 backlist titles. Amazon UK will relocate all of their corporate employees to London by next summer, spread across three offices for the time being. Then, as of 2017, they will occupy more than two-thirds of a […]
Slaughter Squares Off with IRS Over Self-Employment Tax On Royalties
Last week Forbes uncovered two previously unreported lawsuits in US tax court which saw thriller writer Karin Slaughter square off against the Internal Revenue Service. While the suits themselves are interesting on their own, they are particularly relevant for authors with respect to the classification of book royalties as self-employment income, something the IRS has held for more than six decades. The first suit, which Slaughter settled with the IRS in July, covered the 2008 tax year, for which the IRS “had been demanding $146,155 in tax and a $29,231 penalty on top of the $1.14 million [Slaughter] originally paid.” […]
Corporate: Bloomsbury Adds Conway; Full Fathom Digital; New Rizzoli Bookstore Lease
Bloomsbury has purchased the 200-title naval and military history list of Conway from Pavilion Books in the UK (the rebranded version of Anova). Bloomsbury will integrate the titles into their existing lines. Terms were not disclosed, but the Bookseller notes that Conway publisher John Lee will leave after 20 years in that position. James Frey’s packaging company Full Fathom Five is launching a digital imprint that intends to issue a new ebook every week starting October 1. Mashable, which reports the news, explains (?) FFF will publish “genre e-books that the new imprint believes wouldn’t fit into a traditional publishing model but […]