CEO of dominant Canadian retailer Indigo Heather Reisman disclosed after a TV interview today that the company is “in final talks with a number of e-book reader manufacturers and will be choosing one to launch as their own in Canada by the end of this year.” Reisman indicated that neither Sony nor Amazon will be their partner.CTV tech blog
International News
Stake in Spain's Santillana In Play; Pearson, Cengage and Oxford Among Likely Bidders
The FT names Infinitas Learning (what used to be the education division of Wolters Kluwer) as another prospect interested in Santillana, called the “market leader in school textbooks in Spanish-speaking Latin America.” Owner Prisa could “sell up to 30 per cent of the business in a deal that could fetch up to ¬360m ($512m)” as they restructure their debt. The paper adds that “owning a stake in Santillana would fit with Pearson’s expansion into educational publishing outside the US, where the group is twice the size of any of its competitors.”FT
At British Conference, Ian Hudson Reviews Problems
Outgoing Publishers Association president Hudson of Random House UK spoke to the Book Industry Conference about “some of the key current concerns from a trade publisher’s perspective” and urged that publishers “address them together.” “The first and perhaps greatest current concern of trade publishers is the credit-worthiness of their customers.” The second is that “many small and medium sized trade publishers are themselves having to manage their own cash flow very carefully…. Indeed, some publishers I’ve talked to tell me that their ability to deliver their autumn publishing programs is being limited by the credit crunch and their difficulty in […]
World's Richest Children's Prize Launched, for Arabic Books
The new Etisalat Prize for Arabic Children’s Literature, worth approximately $275,000, was announced this morning at BEA. It is backed by the ruler of Sharjah and sponsored by the Emirates Telecommunications Corporation. The announcement sas the prize is “designed to preserve Arab children’s culture in the third millennium. The first winner will be named in November.
EU to Consider Closer Look at Google Settlement
Germany plans to ask the European Commission to take a closer look at the Google Book Search settlement and the library scanning program, and “France, Austria and the Netherlands also said to be keen to have the issue put on the table.” One European diplomat says there is concern about putting the European digital library Europeana (which presents public domain works only) on an equal footing with Google’s book database. A separate article reports that “EU competitiveness ministers meeting in Brussels tomorrow and Friday are likely to ask the Commission to launch an investigation into the implications of the project […]
HBG's Canada Operation to Take On Hachette UK Titles
As of the beginning of 2010, Hachette Book Group will expand its Canadian sales and distribution, launched this year, to handle titles from Hachette UK in Canada. (Sales are actually handled out of New York, where a dedicated sales person will be added, and fulfilled through the company’s warehouse in Indiana.) Publicity and marketing for the UK titles will be handled by HBG Canada, with a new dedicated marketeer and publicist to be hired in Toronto. Most Hachette UK titles are currently represented to the Canadian trade and media by McArthur & Co., with distribution by Harper Canada, though Little […]