The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments Thursday morning on Apple’s motion to stay Judge Cote’s injunction — and in turn, delay the start of the damages trial, currently set for July 14. While the three judges did not issue any ruling from the bench, the immediate sense from their questioning was that one jurist will be in favor of granting the stay, another will vote to deny, and the third seemed undecided, at least outwardly. Apple’s lawyer urged the appeals court to grant the stay as the case is a “classic rule 23 review,” while also noting it’s […]
Perseus Joins with Scribd
Following last week’s announcement that Simon & Schuster is making their backlist available to Scribd subscribers, at BEA Scribd announced an agreement with the Perseus Books Group as well. Perseus is providing “thousands of their amazing books to our readers,” and is the next largest publisher to participate after HarperCollins and S&S. Some people have been confused about the business terms Scribd presents to large publishers, even though we covered it last October when HarperCollins first explained their deal. As S&S reported to agents recently, authors “will receive their standard ebook royalty rate each time one of their books is read.” [After […]
Forthcoming: Jeter’s First List, O’Reilly’s Next Killing
Derek Jeter’s Jeter Publishing co-publishing partnership with Gallery and Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing announced their first three titles Thursday at BEA. Two of those books are by or about…Derek Jeter: a middle grade novel, THE CONTRACT, written with Paul Mantell, for publication September 23, “based on Jeter’s own childhood experience.” And later in the fall they will publish a “chronicle of Jeter’s last season with the New York Yankees, told mostly through the pictures of photographer Chris Anderson.” Jeter says in the announcement, “My goal in creating Jeter Publishing is to work with inspiring people from all walks of […]
Announcements: Tor.com, the Imprint; Kirkus Prizes; and More
Science fiction & fantasy community website Tor.com is expanding its original fiction output with a new imprint devoted to publishing novellas, shorter novels, serializations, and other pieces of fiction exceeding 18,000 words. According to a blog post by the imprint, each DRM-free title will be available exclusively for purchase, and will also be available via POD and audio formats. A “select number of titles” will be considered for traditional print publishing as well. In announcing the imprint at an afternoon presentation at IDPF, Tor/Forge publisher Tom Doherty said: “We see it as a way of science fiction & fantasy to […]
People: Remembering Oscar Dystel, and More
Former ceo of Bantam Books Oscar Dystel, 101, “widely acknowledged as one of the great architects of modern trade publishing”, died Wednesday morning. As chief executive and publisher of Bantam from 1954 through 1978 (with another two years as chairman) Dystel was responsible for some of the most successful paperbacks in the 20th century including EXODUS by Leon Uris; JAWS by Peter Benchley; and Jacqueline Susann’s VALLEY OF THE DOLLS. In a statement Random House paid tribute to Dystel as “a mentor and muse for innumerable authors and past and present colleagues of ours throughout publishing. He was a giant, […]
BEA Data: BookBub Survey Shows Promotion Buyers Are Regular Power Readers
Josh Schanker of fast-growing BookBub presented some data intended to profile “price-sensitive ebook readers” at a BEA panel, based on a random survey of thousands of BookBub members earlier this month. The company “believes BookBub members are representative of bargain readers as a whole.” By their account, bargain ebook buyers are female (84 percent), 45 or older (70 percent); empty-nesters (58 percent); with higher-than-average income (64 percent); who read four or more books a month (59 percent). And most of them buy regularly-priced ebooks (77 percent) as well as discounted ones. Interestingly, their “platform share” is 49 percent Kindle; 26 […]