In their quarterly SEC filing, Barnes & Noble addressed the would-be class action suit filed in New York last month that includes the bookseller and Amazon along with Apple and the six largest trade publishers, alleging price fixing and conspiracy with respect to the agency model for ebooks. “The company denies liability and intends to vigorously defend its interests.” Books-a-Million filed their quarterly report as well, which confirms the continuing merchandise shift underway at physical stores. Books and magazines now comprise 75.6 percent of sales, down from over 80 percent a year ago. The largest growth area, no surprise, is […]
Random House Moves to All-Digital Catalogs In 2012
Random House will move to digital-only catalogs next year, beginning with the summer 2012 children’s lists (for which the selling season begins in early January) and the fall 2012 adult lists. They are using the Edelweiss electronic catalog service, as well their own web sites. The randomhouse.biz site will feature searchable, sortable information for the trade on forthcoming titles, and the divisional consumer sites will integrate and display new title data as well. PDF downloads will be available as well, though some of the site resource enhancements are a work-in-progress, and will be ready for the transition. Random House director, […]
Google Acquires Zagat
Zagat, which first was put up for sale in early 2008 and failed to close a deal, has been acquired by Google. Terms were not disclosed (for now; they will probably be disclosed when Google files their quarterly report). The company’s Marissa Mayer blogs, “Their surveys may be one of the earliest forms of UGC (user-generated content)—gathering restaurant recommendations from friends, computing and distributing ratings before the Internet as we know it today even existed…. I’m incredibly excited to collaborate with Zagat to bring the power of Google search and Google Maps to their products and users, and to bring […]
Amazon Wins Tentative CA Sales Tax Reprieve, and Free Romney eBook; French Publishers Drop Suit Against Google
On Wednesday night Amazon and California state legislative leaders reached a tentative deal with respect to the state’s new online sales tax law. Under their agreement Amazon would not have to collect sales tax until September 2012, and in return the retailer would drop its referendum campaign to overturn the law, on which they have spent $5 million so far. “It’s a safe harbor for up to a year,” State Assemblyman Charles Calderon told the LAT of the agreement he helped strike. “If they can’t get Congress to act by next July, then they will start to collect the tax […]
Bookselling: BAMM To Close Three Stores
Later on Thursday federal bankruptcy court is set to approve Books-A-Million’s deal to take over 14 store leases from Borders. At the same time, the now-second-largest book retailer is closing stores in Asheville, NC; Florence, SC, and Tupelo, MS by the end of next week. Each of these stores has been open more than 15 years, with approximately 60 people set to lose their jobs. Going out of business sales begin Thursday with books and other merchandise priced at 20 percent off. Citizen-Times SCNow NE MS Daily Journal Antiquarian bookstore Serendipity Books will close its Berkeley, CA shop after nearly […]
People, Etc.
At Penguin, Molly Barton has been promoted to vp, digital publishing and business development and strategy. Earlier this year she was responsible for launching the writing community website Book Country and was also responsible for developing Penguin eSpecials, expanding the publisher’s relationship with Starz, and spearheading Penguin’s enhanced ebook app program. Meagan Stacey has joined Crown as editor, trade paperbacks, reporting to Tina Pohlman. Previously she was an editor at Mariner Books. Project Gutenberg founder Michael S. Hart died September 6 at his home in Urbana, IL. He was 64 and the cause of death was not disclosed. He is […]