Author Pat Conroy announced on Facebook on Monday, “I have recently been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. With the help of the wonderful people at M.D. Anderson I intend to fight it hard. I am grateful to all my beloved readers, my friends and my family for their prayers. I owe you a novel and intend to deliver it.” Last summer, he told the Washington Post he had recently finished a YA novel with his daughter Melissa and was working on a new novel about Charleston.” Conroy noted as well in his post: “I celebrated my 70th birthday in October and realized that […]
Rakuten Takes Big Impairment Charge On Kobo
Last Friday Rakuten reported fourth quarter full-year 2015 results. In connection with that report, they took 38.1 billion yen in impairment charges (roughly $332 million), including a significant charge against the Kobo division of 7.8 billion yen (roughly $68 million). The company said that Kobo “has been impacted by a slower start to the rise of the global ebook industry than we originally expected, and hence its business plan fell behind original targets.” At the same time, Rakuten said that OverDrive’s financial performance “has been rapidly improving.” They added that “as a result, we expect EBITDA of our ebook business including […]
Coming Soon: New Data at DBW, and More
Our big seventh-annual Digital Book World is just three weeks away, with the main conference on March 8 and 9 — after our biggest-yet “Day Zero” roster on March 7 featuring the all-day Launch Kids, the brand-new four Mostly Marketing Masterclasses (with Pete McCarthy, Kelly Gallagher, Annie Cushing, and Tom Thompson), the also-new Nielsen half-day conference, and the return of some DBW Workshop favorites. Data is in the spotlight even more than usual this year, as we feature the first-known stage appearance of “Data Guy,” the controversial analyst behind the ongoing Author Earnings reports. To be clear, Data Guy’s DBW presentation […]
People, Awards, Etc.
Donald Roseman has joined Ingram in the new role of vp, retail, focusing on the company’s overall retail business, including national accounts, clubs, field sales, consumer direct fulfillment and Ingram International. Roseman was previously general manager and svp, sales and business development at Goodbaby International Holdings. At David C. Cook, Catherine DeVries has been promoted to publisher of children’s resources. Foreign rights director for Brandt & Hochman Marianne Merola will represent translation rights for the Joy Harris Literary Agency as well as of March 1. Foreword Reviews has hired Seth Dellon as director of circulation and audience development (he was previously digital […]
Amazon’s Tale of Two Borrows Continues: KU Pool Rises, Page Rate Decreases
Amazon announced the retroactive rate at which they will compensate Kindle Unlimited participants for books read (and subscriptions paid for) in January. The per page fell to its lowest point yet, $.00412 per page (about 4/10ths of one cent) — or 10.6 percent lower than the $0.00461 per page a month ago — while the overall pool of money paid out increased to its highest level yet, at $15 million. At the beginning of the month, Amazon had also announced a revised methodology for their universal way of measuring ebook “pages” for calculating those per-page payments. That new method applies starting […]
Briefs: Clare’s Lawyer Responds to Kenyon Lawsuit; “Birthday Cake” Author Speaks Out; and More
Cassandra Clare‘s lawyer, John Cahill of Cahill Associates, issued a statement Thursday afternoon responding to Sherrilyn Kenyon’s trademark and copyright infringment lawsuit filed against Clare late last week. “Cassie was both surprised and disappointed that Ms. Kenyon would file this baseless lawsuit, a decade after the debut of Cassie’s books. Kenyon is wrong when she claims that Cassandra Clare or her publisher made any agreements about using ‘shadowhunters.’ Cassie never gave Kenyon any assurances regarding this and, although she would have preferred to resolve any concerns that Ms. Kenyon has or may have had, Ms. Kenyon never contacted or spoke […]