Random House India and chairman of Random House New Zealand Michael Moynahan will move back to become ceo of Harper Collins for Australia and New Zealand in the new year, reporting to Victoria Barnsley. She says, “His extensive publishing background and management experience, along with an impressive track record in growing Random House’s business in both India and New Zealand, make him a perfect choice to take our business to the next level.” Moynahan adds, “Harper Collins ANZ rightly enjoys an enviable position in the market and I am looking forward to working with the team to build on a […]
International News
Australia Continues to Evaluate Lifting Import Restrictions
In their own bureaucratic way, the Australian government is moving ahead with their examination of whether to lift or amend the copyright law that stipulates that if an Australian publisher issues their own version a book released somewhere else in the world within 30 days of its original publication, import editions are banned for sale. The Productivity Commission is required to issue a report within six months.Government release
Goncourt to Afghan Author Rahimi
France’s Prix Goncourt has gone to Atiq Rahimi’s STONE OF PATIENCE (Syngue Sabour), “the story of a woman whose husband suffers brain damage from a bullet wound” according to publisher Editions P.O.L. Born in Afghanistan in 1962, Rahimi fled to Pakistan in his 20s and then received asylum in France before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 after the ejection of the Taliban. The author (also a filmmaker) told French television, “All I can say is: I’m so happy that I’ll need many dictionaries, many encyclopedias to find the word or words, the expressions, to express this reaction.” In the US, […]
Indigo Has An e-Content Play
Canada’s dominant retailer Indigo has plans for a electronic text offering focused on free and paid downloads for mobile devices, Quill and Quire reports. The enterprise will be established as a separately-branded subsidiary of Indigo, serving customers throughout North America (with intentions of going global), and set to launch in early 2009. “The final details won’t be unveiled until December,” the magazine reports, but Indigo cto Michael Serbinis confirms certain detials. Material on offer will range from complete e-books for mobile reading to small chunks (chapters, articles and short stories) and user-generated content. It sounds as if download fees will […]
Barnsley Looks Ahead
Harper UK ceo Victoria Barnsley gave a speech called Media’s Last Diehard? at the London School of Economics last night. Improbably, though it has taken 10 years for online sales of physical books to comprise 12 percent of sales at HarperCollins, she speculated that “within say 10 years more than half our sales will come from digital downloads.” She acknowledged that territorial rights will be “pretty hard to police” if ebooks become that prevalent and “also said it would be difficult to establish a profitable pricing model when most consumers are used to free digital content.”Bookseller
More Reports: Indigo Holds Steady
At Canada’s dominant retailer Indigo, sales for the second quarter fell 2 percent to $205 million (CA), with net earnings “down slightly” at $3.2 million. CEO Heather Reisman says “we were pleased with the bottom line results given today’s challenging economic climate.” Same-store sales rose 2 percent at the Indigo and Chapters superstores, and 7.4 percent at the small-format Coles stores. But online sales decreased 19.8 percent to $21.1 million, attributed entirely (and then some) to the comparison to last year’s numbers for the release of the final Harry Potter Book.Release