Penguin Random House Canada announced a realignment of the now merged sales department, leading to the elimination of five jobs. Leaving the company are Don Robinson, most recently vp, sales, and Leith Hayman, director of sales, at Penguin; Marlene Fraser, director, special sales for Random House of Canada; Ned Ma, financial analyst for Penguin Canada; and Katerina Ortakova, national accounts marketing assistant for Random House of Canada. Robinson and Fraser had been with their respective companies for more than 20 years. As part of the restructure, Jordan Fenn has been promoted to vp, director, new business development, special markets, overseeing […]
Authors Guild Vows Appeal of Google Fair Use Ruling
The Authors Guild responded to our request for comment after Wednesday’s Publishers Lunch was dispatched. Executive director Paul Aiken said, “We plan to appeal the decision” from Judge Denny Chin finding that Google’s book scanning was protected fair use under copyright law. Aikens added: “We disagree with and are disappointed by the court’s decision. This case presents a fundamental challenge to copyright that merits review by a higher court. Google made unauthorized digital editions of nearly all of the world’s valuable copyright-protected literature and profits from displaying those works. In our view, such mass digitization and exploitation far exceeds the […]
Maclean Tops December Library List
The LibraryReads initiative has announced their fourth monthly list of librarian favorites for November. Their No 1. pick is Sarah Maclean’s new novel No Good Duke Goes Unpunished: The Third Rule of Scoundrels, and also includes: The Yellow Eyes of Crocodiles: A Novel, Katherine Pancol, translated by William Rodarmor and Helen Dickinson Vatican Waltz, Roland Merullo How to Run with a Naked Werewolf, Molly Harper The Supreme Macaroni Company, Adriana Trigiani The Secret Rooms: A True Story of a Haunted Castle, a Plotting Duchess, and a Family Secret, Catherine Bailey Dangerous Women, edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois […]
People, Etc.
Simon & Schuster has reorganized its manufacturing and production department in a bid to “further integrate the design and creation of ebooks into the earliest stages of our overall production process, as well as forge closer ties between our Adult publishing groups and the design, copyediting and production teams that create our books.” Irene Kheradi has been promoted to vp, executive managing editor of production and copy editing. Samantha Cohen moves up to vp, design and digital content development. Angela Hsiao has been named vp, demand planning and reprints. And Joe Bulger moves up to vp, client management and business development. […]
Judge Chin Finds Google’s Book Scanning Is Fair Use, First Ruling In Eight-Year Case
After 8 years of litigation over Google’s broad-scale scanning and indexing of more than 20 million books in libraries, Judge Denny Chin has granted summary judgment in favor of Google, ruling that their work qualifies as fair use. The revised case brought by the Authors Guild and individual authors has been dismissed. Judge Chin’s ruling is sweepingly in Google’s favor, praising the service the company has provided and offering no shades of grey or nuance of interpretation in weighing whether it qualifies as fair use. Judge Chin’s examination of all four factors to evaluate fair use is unequivocable, beginning with the […]
More Details On Top Self-Publishers That Use ISBNs
When Bowker first announced their updated 2012 statistics last month about newly issued self-published books and ebooks that carry ISBNs last month, we were asked not to share specifics about individual companies. As we noted, four companies account for over 80 percent of the ISBN-carrying self-published books. There is no data available on the substantial flow of ebooks from the likes of KDP and Nook Press that carry only proprietary identifiers rather than ISBNs. So in the Bowker counts, self-published print books still are in the lead. CreateSpace alone accounted for over 55 percent of the ISBNs, with 131,000 titles […]