It will come as no great surprise that Julian Assange has released correspondence with Canongate and purported transcripts of apparently-taped phone calls with Canongate publisher Jamie Byng. Though Canongate published the unauthorized draft in part due to admitted “financial imperative,” according to an email from Assange’s agent Caroline Michel, by going ahead with publication, Canongate now is obligated to pay Assange, “in accordance with the agreement, the remaining amounts of £225,000 on delivery of the complete manuscript and £175,000 on first UK publication.” (That should provide enough to pay back Knopf and still leave some for Assange.) As we noted […]
Strong Start for O’Reilly’s Lincoln Book
Holt is celebrating strong first-day sales for Bill O’Reilly’s KILLING LINCOLN, a departure for the television host and his first book for the house, reuniting with his publisher from Random House, Steve Rubin. The publisher says the opening day sales alone were in excess of O’Reilly’s first-week sales on his last two hardcover releases, indicating combined print and ebook sales in excess of 30,000 units, and day two sales “are keeping apace.” Rubin says “contemporary times makes it something people really want to read. He feels like Lincoln was a great leader, and what we lack now is leadership.” O’Reilly […]
New Kindles for UK and Germany
We kept refreshing and updating our Amazon story yesterday, so a couple of details were missing from certain editions. A UK version of the least expensive regular Kindle–the non-touchscreen model–is available for pre-order, for release on October 12, at £89 (or roughly $140). A German version is priced at 99 euros. Both are ad-free models. Most press still missed out on the real prices of ad-free touchscreen Kindles: $139 for Touch and $189 for Touch Global 3G. The former is the same as the Nook Touch launched earlier this year. Kobo’s touchscreen device is $129, and their non-touchscreen reader is […]
Cengage Swings to Loss; Will Need to Refinance
Cengage had sales of $1.88 billion in their most recent fiscal year, ending in June, but the textbook company went from income of $47 million in the previous year to a loss of $37 million. Thirty-one percent of recents come from digital products and print-and-digital bundles. Bought by Apax Partners in the overvalued days of cheap and abundant credit in 2007 for $7.75 billion, the company still carries gross debt of $5.7 billion, which costs $480 million a year in interest. CEO Ron Dunn “says it will need to refinance within 18 months,” but also indicates to the FT there […]
People: Sevier Promoted to EIC at Dutton, Rinaldi Leaves Rodale, and More
Ben Sevier has been promoted to editor-in-chief at Dutton, effective Octboer 3. He has been there for almost five years. President and publisher Brian Tart says, “I know from both authors and agents how much of an advocate Ben is for his writers. He gets the best out of them, every time. He believes in the power of a good story and he finds innovative ways to reach the widest possible audience for each of his books. I can’t think of a better person to lead our editorial efforts than Ben Sevier.” Rodale evp and general manager of the books […]
Perseus Sees Opportunity Ahead
Perseus Books Group ceo David Steinberger issued his annual letter to employees, “reflect[ing] on a fiscal year of hard work and impressive results.” The privately-held company (which therefore does not release actual figures) “generated strong financial results” in their fiscal year, ending June 30. On the overall environment, Steinberger writes: “We continue to live and work in a time of global opportunity, technological revolutions, and economic uncertainty. The evolution and transformation of our industry in particular has been and will continue to be a significant challenge as evidenced by the recent collapse of Borders. The current economic climate is very challenging […]