Apple’s iPad released today in major book markets included UK, Canada, Australia, Japan, and Germany–plus France, Italy, Spain and Switzerland. Though the UK iBookstore launch was preceded by worried speculation that UK publishers were concerned aspects of Apple’s contract might run afoul of local pricing laws, lo and behold, Ye Agency Foure (Hachette UK, Penguin, Pan Macmillan and Harper UK) are all participating. (The smallest of the group, Simon & Schuster UK, is not currently participating and has yet to comment.) But no other UK publishers are known to have a direct relationship with Apple yet, and again Random UK […]
International News
Faber's Page on Publishers' Priorities in the Digital Age, And Corollaries from BEA
In concert with iPad launch, Faber and Faber ceo Stephen Page has an essay in the Guardian on what it means for publishers: “It’s clear that publishers must move faster to establish our compelling and useful role in the modern life of reading. While acquiring new expertise, we must assert the best of our traditional strengths; providing capital (in the form of advance payments), offering editorial expertise, and creating a readership by designing, creating, storing, promoting and selling the works of writers. But that’s not enough. Publishers also have to explain what value they are bringing to the relationship between […]
Larsson Windfall Finally Kicks In As Quercus Sales Rise 75%
Sales at the UK’s Quercus rose 75 percent in the past year, now up to 19.13 million pounds as they finally enjoy the river of cash from holding world rights to Steig Larsson’s trilogy. That said, the company–and market–has been troubled enough that they still wrote down a chunk of author advances, impairing profits. Operating profit before tax was 1.19 million pounds. Creditors are nearly getting paid on time now, down from 126 days to 74 days, and with luck that means authors are getting paid on a more timely fashion, too. With the Larsson revenue stream growing constantly, preliminary […]
Disney Takes Over Marvel Publishing; Cursor Signs with PGW
Disney Publishing announced today that they are taking over management of–and aiming to expand–subsidiary Marvel Entertainment’s children’s licensed book publishing business worldwide. “Working with key licensees around the world, including the U.S. market, DPW will create original new content for coloring and activity, novelty, gift and sound books as well as for high end storybooks and chapter books.” Richard Nash’s start-up line has officially confirmed their distribution deal with PGW, starting July 1–though their first print title, Lynne Tillman’s Some Day This Will be Funny, won’t publish until spring 2011.
New Books from Old Authors: Twain, Roth and Fallada
Mark Twain stipulated that some 5,000 pages of unpublished memoirs should not be published until at least 100 years after his death in 1910. On schedule, the University of California, Berkeley is preparing to release in November the first in a three-volume Autobiography of Mark Twain that will comprise 500,000 words in all.IndependentUC Press page The New York Times looks at the latest book to come from the prolifically posthumous publishing enterprise of the archives of the late Henry Roth. Norton will publish AN AMERICAN TYPE on June 7. The paper credits young New Yorker editor Willing Davidson with “quarr[ying] […]
Today's Bulletins from Open Road, Vook, Amazon, Kobo and Google Editions
Open Road has announced their first original title, former diplomat Mitchell Reiss’s NEGOTIATING WITH EVIL, “a guide to talking — or not talking — to terrorists and insurgents.” Reiss met Jane Friedman while traveling last year in Africa. He’s getting no advance, and a 50 percent profit share. The ebook releases in September with a print version to follow. Friedman reiterates her belief that “exciting videos are going to move the needle” in marketing books. Speaking of videos, the latest Vook adds studio and concert footage and interviews to a version of Marc Canter’s Guns N’ Roses book RECKLESS ROAD […]