Bonnier Books UK will launch Footnote Press in early 2022, “an independently run, disruptive publisher” planning on 10 to 15 books a year of “stimulating and politically-engaged fiction and non-fiction.” Former co-owner and business development director at the radical publishing collective Zed Books Vidisha Biswas is managing director, reporting to ceo Perminder Mann. Video games […]
International News
France Passes Legislation Requiring Minimum Shipping Rate
French parliament has passed, but not enacted, a law requiring a minimum shipping fee for books, Reuter’s reports. The legislation is clearly aimed at Amazon, which charges as little as one cent for shipping, after France banned free shipping in 2014 in an attempt to level the playing field with independent bookstores.
Awards: Governor General’s and Cundhill Finalists
Two big Canadian literary prizes announced their nominees. The Governor General’s awards named English-language nominees in seven categories, including Fiction, where the field includes Rachel Cusk’s SECOND PLACE. Winners will be revealed on November 17. The Cundhill History Prize named their nominees as well (with the winner to be announced December 2.)
Frankfurt Deal Trends Show Good Activity, But Lag Last Year’s Records
Recently we reported on third-quarter dealmaking trends in the US, with a relatively strong performance falling a little below last year’s big quarter — just as Bookscan-monitored print sales have been strong but ebbing a little in comparison to 2020. We also flagged a falloff in debut fiction sales. Now we turn to another of […]
Distribution: IPG Acquires UK’s United Independent Distributors
Independent Publishers Group (IPG) has acquired UK-based United Independent Distributors (UID), which owns the distribution centers Marston, Orca Book Services and Turpin Distribution, along with Eurospan, a sales and marketing agency for international academic and professional publishers. The merger comes as UID opens a new warehouse in South East England to consolidate its distribution centers. […]
Distribution: Ingram Adds POD in Japan
Ingram’s print-on-demand business Lightning Source has partnered with Dai Nippon Printing to expand its global POD and distribution capacities to Japan, “enabling books within [their] catalog to be accessed, printed and delivered in the local bookselling markets quickly,” Ingram svp of content acquisition, international David Taylor said. “This is an unprecedented advantage for the Japanese […]