Exactly a year after Random House started selling ebooks on the agency model in the US, Random House Canada has done likewise, effective March 1. The company said in a brief announcement, “The agency model guarantees a higher margin for retailers than did our previous sales terms. We are making this change both as an investment in the successful digital transition of our existing partners and in order to give us the opportunity to forge new retail relationships. We are looking forward to continuing to work with all our retail partners – both digital and physical – on our joint […]
International News
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 […]
Like Others, Harlequin Sees Sales Soften and Margins Hold Up
Canada’s Torstar reported fourth-quarter and fiscal year results Wednesday, and the performance of Harlequin fits the general pattern of other publicly-reported trade publishers: sales were down a little, and operating earnings rose. This is what the digital transition looks like. For the full year, digital comprised 15.5 of revenues of $459 million CA (down 2 percent from $468 million the previous year). In the fourth quarter alone, digital accounted for 17.7 percent of worldwide sales of $118 million, down $2 million. Digital sales added $7 million in the fourth quarter compared to a year ago, while retail print sales declined […]
Bloomsbury Exits Germany, Selling Berlin Verlag to Bonnier
With no more JK Rowling books to issue in German, Bloomsbury is relinquishing their division in that country, announcing an agreement to sell Berlin Verlag to Bonnier’s German subsidiary, which owns Piper Verlag. In classic Bloomsbury fashion, the deal structure has multiple parts. Bloomsbury will receive a total of 4.4 million euros in cash–but only 2.6 million euros are for the purchase of Berlin Verlag. Piper will have a three-year license, renewable at Bloomsbury’s option, to publish the company’s trade books in Germany (worth 800,000 euros in the deal) and 1 million euros to use Bloomsbury Berlin and other related […]
Even with eBooks, New Title Count In UK Falls
In the UK, ISBN agency Nielsen says that new titles published during 2011 declined slightly from the previous year, totaling 149,800 books. Of those 35,000 were ebooks (or online resources), 28,000 were hardcovers, and 71,000 were paperbacks. The Nielsen UK figures have not reflected the same explosion in ISBN-carrying content as the US, where “POD farms” and self-publishers have accounted for many hundreds of thousands of units. Nor does the Nielsen data–or even Bowker’s US data–tabulate the increasing number of self-published ebooks that carry only proprietary store identifiers (like Amazon’s ASIN) rather than receiving registered ISBNs.
People, Etc.
A Public Space editor Brigid Hughes will join Graywolf Press as contributing editor as part of a new collaborative venture between the literary magazine and the publishing house. Graywolf plans to publish two A Public Space books per year, to be chosen and edited by Hughes, with “A Public Space Book” printed on the back cover and in the interior. The inaugural book will be selected in the coming months. “The collaboration is a natural extension of our work with writers in A Public Space—it will be wonderful to stay involved in a piece that starts in our pages as […]