Following a complaint lodged by Germany’s Publishers and Booksellers Association in September, the country’s Federal Cartel Office (Bundeskartellamt) announced on Monday that it “has initiated administrative proceedings against the Amazon subsidiary Audible.com and Apple Computer Inc,” regarding their “long-term agreement” that has Audible as the exclusive supplier of audiobooks to the iTunes Store. President of the Federal Cartel Office Andreas Mundt says in the statement: “Both companies hold a strong position in the market for digital audiobooks in Germany. We therefore see ourselves obliged to examine more closely the agreement between these two competitors. The audiobook publishers need to have sufficient alternative channels for […]
International News
Corporate: Expanded S&S Library Option, Expanding Orbit, and More
Simon & Schuster is testing an expansion of their business proposition for library ebook lending. Announced by Overdrive on their blog, the new pilot offers an expanded two-year lending term for a roster of about 550 titles, with the second year priced at 50 percent of the one-year lending sales price. The starting selection includes at least some bestsellers and frontlist releases. Hachette Book Group’s sci-fi/fantasy imprint Orbit will increase the number of titles it publishes by 50 percent starting with the fall 2016 season, growing to about 90 titles a year. The line says it will hire additional editorial, marketing, and design staff to […]
Quarterly Briefs: Continued Improvement For Indigo; Quarto Stays Flat
Canada’s Indigo reported second quarter results on Tuesday, with sales rising $16.7 million (CA), or 8.8 percent, to $206 million, and a reduced net loss of $1.8 million, compared to a loss of $8.5 million a year ago. As in the previous year, “revenue growth was driven by the continued double digit growth of the general merchandise business” mainly in “paper and toys,” with changes to the paper business to account for the weakness of the Canadian dollar. The company’s core book business growth also got a big boost “by the trend for adult coloring books,” while reducing costs related […]
Hachette Still Eyes Strategic Acquisitions All Over
Hachette Livre ceo Arnaud Nourry was the headliner in the annual ceo interview at the Frankfurt Book Fair on Wednesday. Nourry reiterated the position of his parent company Lagardere, which has been putting their major “allocation of cash…towards other businesses” recently but remains ready for smaller investments in publishing. “As far as medium-size, fill-in acquisitions, we are and will remain very active,” Nourry made clear. On his shopping list, “In America, we would certainly be stronger in nonfiction and that’s an area where at the time we were looking at it, Perseus was a very good fit,” and the desire to […]
Amazon Crossing to Spend $10 Million On Translations
After five years of their ambitious initiative to publish literature in translation, Amazon Publishing’s Amazon Crossing announced a “$10 million commitment over the next five years to increase the number and diversity of its books in translation” (so $2 million a year.) That money “will go toward fees paid to translators,” the company said, “and increasing the countries and languages represented on the Amazon Crossing list.” The company has also opened a website “for authors, agents and publishers to suggest titles for translation.” They will consider the following categories: mystery, thriller, women’s fiction, historical fiction, literary fiction, memoir, science fiction and fantasy. Publisher […]
The Frankfurt Book Fair Opens (Sort of)
The Frankfurt Book Fair is a show of many openings. There is the official press conference on Tuesday morning — which really is press only, and required early applications and background checks for credentials this year with high security for the keynote address from author Salman Rushdie. On Tuesday afternoon there is the opening ceremony, welcoming the international guest of honor (this year it’s Indonesia). For agents and other rights sellers the work has already begun, at the pre-rights-center-of-habit in the Frankfurter Hof hotel. And tonight, there is the unofficial first big event at the annual Hachette Book Group party, with an […]