Kodansha and Dai Nippon Printing announced they are buying nearly equal stakes in smaller Japanese publisher Vertical, for an undisclosed sum. Kodansha will own 46.7% of the company, and Dai Nippon will hold a 46% stake. In addition, current COO Yoshinobu Noma will succeed Sawako Noma as Kodansha CEO in April.Anime News Network Syracuse University Press will no longer print copies of Montclair State University professor Fawzia Afzal-Khan’s fictionalized memoir Lahore With Love: Growing Up With Girlfriends Pakistani Style, published last year, after receiving legal threats from a woman in Pakistan who says that a character is based on her […]
University presses
People, Etc.
Nicole Dewey will join Little, Brown as executive director of publicity, starting November 15 and reporting to vp, marketing director Heather Fain. She has been executive director of publicity at Henry Holt. Director of the University of Texas Press since 1992 Joanna Hitchcock announced that she will retire at the end of February. She said, “I’ve been at the helm for almost a third of the Press’s 60-year existence and it is time for new leadership.” Erzsi Deà k is now scouting for both children’s imprints of La Martinière Groupe in France: Le Seuil Jeunesse and La Martinière Jeunesse. She works […]
People and Distribution
Kobo has announced the opening of their New York office, focused on publisher relations andUS content acquisition. Ami Greko joins the company as senior manager, vendor relations, books. She was director of business development for GetGlue after having managed digital marketing for Macmillan. Jan Ehrlich has been hired as director, newspapers and magazines. She was most recently director of business development for Texterity. Kobo notes in the announcement, “Publisher relationships are something we take very seriously at Kobo. Our work with US-based publishers is growing at a frantic pace as we continue to add new vendors, deepen our retail relationships, […]
eNews: Rice Digital Press Experiment Folds, As Inkling Launches to Adapt Textbooks to iPad
University press publishing can be difficult regardless of the medium, and Rice University has decided to end their four-year experiment with a digital-only press. The former provost who authorized the venture originally Eugene Levy says, “The hope was that, without the burden of having to maintain a print inventory, the press might sustain itself largely on revenues from print-on-demand book sales. Unfortunately, book sales remained very slow, and projections discouraged the anticipation that revenues would, in the foreseeable future, grow to a level that could materially cover even minimal costs of operations.” The press had closed once before, in 1996.http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Rice-U-to-Close-Its-Digital/26342 […]
U. Presses Wrestle with Threats, Change
Inside Higher Ed has a nice overview of discussions at the Association of American University Presses meeting in Philadelphia on Saturday. “some speakers focused on ways for university presses to better position themselves to survive university budget-cutting processes in these bad times. Others, however suggested new business models — with more of an emphasis on digital and/or free content. These discussions were based on the reality that university presses aren’t just being hurt by the bad economy, but by changes in reader habits.” Among the speakers: – A collection development librarian at York College of Pennsylvania emphasized that students want […]