Oxford University Press announced a realignment of its three academic publishing divisions–Oxford University Press USA, the UK’s academic division (essentially their adult publishing operation), and Oxford Journals–under the consolidated leadership of current OUP USA president Tim Barton. He took that post recently, after serving as managing director of the UK Academic Division for four years. Communications director Rachel Goode says that they are recruiting for a new position to take care of day-to-day US management under Barton after he makes the transition. The move reflects a more global, platform-neutral strategy across key divisions. Barton comments, “Digital and competitive pressures make […]
Free
Stats: AAP and UK
We don’t put a lot of stock into the AAP’s sales estimates (a hybrid of Census data and reports from 86 AAP member publishers, both of which are incomplete data streams). But for those who like to follow them, today the organization published its 2009 sales estimates. Trade sales of $8.1 billion were “steady,” with adult hardcover rising 6.9 percent and adult paperbacks falling 5.2 percent. Mass market paperbacks totaled $1 billion, down 4 percent. By their count, ebook sales of $313 million–up 176 percent–overtook audio sales, which at $192 million were down 12.9 percent. Religious book sales fell 9 […]
People, Etc.
Jeanne Emanuel will join the Perseus Books Group later this month in the new position of vp of special and gift sales, based in the Cambridge, MA office and reporting to Matty Goldberg. She was previously executive director of sales for Adams Media. In promotions at Bloomsbury/Walker/Bloomsbury Press: Benjamin Adams has become a senior editor; Pete Beatty moves up to editor; Margaret Maloney is now an associate editor; Rachel Mannheimer becomes an assistant editor; Carrie Majer has been made a senior publicist; and Jiyeon Dew was promoted to production manager. At Harper, Maya Ziv and Jason Sack have both been […]
Your iBooks Distribution Options
The distribution picture for getting your books into the iBookstore is becoming clear with a raft of announcements from service providers and an informational page at the iTunes site. While music and music video vendors can fill out an online vendor application for Apple’s review, it appears that book publishers currently have two options only. Either an iBookstore representative has issued you an “application code” to apply for the iBookstore directly, or else you are directed to a list of seven “Apple-approved aggregators.” As Apple notes, “if you choose to work with an aggregator to distribute your content on the […]
People
Jocelyn Schmidt will join Penguin Children’s on April 19 in the new position of director of brand management. She was most recently vp, director of sales at Random House, where she led the mass merchandise sales group.Lia Brown is joining Avalon Books as editor and Jennifer Graham is joining the company as production editor.
Tablet Days: Apple Says Oveer 250k eBooks On First Day
Apple resolved some of the guessing (and overheated estimates) by announcing this morning that they sold “over 300,000 iPads” on Saturday–including pre-orders and “deliveries” to partners like Best Buy. They say that “over 250,000 ebooks” were downloaded from the iBookstore on day one (presumably including free titles) along with over one million apps. Among third-party book apps, the Kindle and Kobo apps were indeed live and working on the iPad, though Barnes & Noble’s app is not yet available. Going by ceo William Lynch’s quote to WSJ, it’s not clear whether it’s the bookseller’s fault or Apple’s: “We don’t have […]