The Kobo Touch will be available for sale in Japan as soon as July, according to a report from the Asahi Shimbun. Rakuten ceo and chairman Hiroshi Mikitani said the company plans to price the Kobo Touch reader at around 10,000 yen ($126) or cheaper, with plans to sell 50,000 ebook titles by the end of the year. “As a Japanese company, we cannot lose (to overseas rivals),” Mikitani told the paper. “With Kobo devices, we will be able to export Japanese content. The Japanese publishing industry will become a huge content industry.” Further details will be announced at a […]
International News
Trewin and Sheinkman to Bolster William Morris Endeavor UK
William Morris Endeavor has hired two prominent young UK-based agents to run their UK literary office, more than filling the void left when Eugenie Furniss left the agency earlier this year to start her own firm. Simon Trewin of United Agents has been named head of the UK literary department as well as partner, and Elizabeth Sheinkman of Curtis Brown UK “will help spearhead” the London office. Co-head of the worldwide literary department Jennifer Rudolph Walsh says in the announcement, “We feel like we’ve hit the jackpot with these two, and I’m looking forward to watching our UK book division […]
Google Launches eBooks In Both Germany and Spain
Google has rolled out Google Play storefronts in both Germany and Spain this week, with ebooks featured in both offerings. Those store openings have come quickly after their first non-English ebookstore in Italy, which debuted in early May. Particularly after their settlement of lawsuits related to the Google Books scanning project in France earlier this month, a French ebookstore is expected to follow soon.
Phaidon Hires Banker, Seeks Buyer
Phaidon Press has retained investment bankers Greenhill to show the publisher to prospective buyers. Current owner Richard Schlagman bought Phaidon out of bankruptcy in 1990 and “said that he had decided that it was time for another owner to lead its transition from a largely print business to the digital era of iPads, Kindles and other ereading devices.” He admits that Phaidon underwent “retrenchment” in 2009 and 2010 by says the company is “profitable and growing.” The FT says documents filed with the UK’s Companies House show sales of £25 million in the fiscal year ending June 2011 were up […]
Sainsbury’s Relieves HMV of Anobii
UK supermarket chain Sainsbury’s has taken HMV’s 45 percent stake in ebook social network site Anobii off of their hands for a mighty £1. They are making an additional, unspecified “investment in the future” of Anobii that will provide them a total controlling share of what is “anticipated” as a 64 percent stake. HarperCollins, Penguin and Random House UK will remain as minority partners, presumably with some dilution as the result of Sainsbury’s additional investment. HMV paid $3.25 million for their Anobii holding in early 2011, and recorded a £1 million loss in the most recent year on Anobii and another […]
Google Settles French Scanning Lawsuits; Creates Commercial Model for Out-of-Print Access
Google Books has achieved in France what the company has been unable to do in the US: They have settled the remaining lawsuits over their book scanning with the French Publishers Association (Syndicat national de l’édition) and the French Author’s Association (Société des gens de lettres) and instituted a commercial arrangement for selling access to out-of-print books that Google has scanned. Strategic Partner Development Manager of Google Books France Philippe Colombet says the new “partnerships…will put France ahead of the rest of the world in bringing long lost out-of-print works back to life. From now, publishers will promote and commercialize […]