In another of the annual filings for those owning more than 5 percent of public companies, Texas-based hedge fund Dimensional Fund Advisors (a huge quant fund that has over $260 billion in investments) disclosed that they increased their stake in Barnes & Noble during 2012. A year ago they reported having taken a 5.45 percent position of about 3.2 million shares by the end of 2011. The new filing indicates that their stake had grown to 7.28 percent of BN stock by the end of 2012, or roughly 4.3 million shares. Barnes & Noble’s stock has risen following the disclosure […]
People
Kobo executive Michael Tamblyn was promoted recently to the new position chief content officer for the ebookseller, and that move was officially announced today. He is responsible for Kobo’s content acquisition and sales, publisher and industry relations, and localized merchandising experiences across all of their services. CEO Michael Serbinis says in the announcement: “Michael Tamblyn’s leadership in the industry and his hands-on approach to working with publishers and authors has been instrumental to Kobo’s success. In his new role, he will continue to grow our existing catalogue and drive Kobo’s expansion into new content categories.” Rebecca Strauss will be moving […]
Macmillan Settles 3 Cases; Discounting Starts this Week, Stimulus Starts Soon, But Penguin Still Hasn’t Settled with States
On Friday Macmillan actually agreed to settle three lawsuits all at once–the ebook pricing case brought by the Department of Justice, but also the parallel case led by a consortium of attorneys general for the states and even the class-action case filed on behalf of consumers. Separately, also on Friday, the presiding judge over all of the cases Denise Cote gave final approval to the states’ settlement with Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster. As a result, the payout of restitution to qualifying consumers will begin “as soon as practicable.” (Earlier documents indicated payouts would begin 30 days […]
Bookselling: Longfellow Books Suffers Serious Water Damage; Books-A-Million to Close More Stores; and More
Longfellow Books in Portland, ME suffered extensive damage in the wake of the blizzard that hit much of the Northeastern US. “Apparently the wind blew in a window on the second floor, which caused pipes to freeze,” the store wrote on its Facebook page. The sprinkler system also turned on and “drenched the store’s books”, causing damage to nearly half of the store’s 30,000 titles. Co-owner Chris Bowe told the Portland Press-Herald he hopes Longfellow can re-open by Thursday night, in time for a Valentine’s Day benefit reading. In store closure news, Books-A-Million will close its Charlotte, NC location by […]
People, Awards, Etc.
Brandi Larsen has joined Penguin as director of Book Country. Previously she was at the Chicago Tribune, where she worked on adapting the paper’s content for mobile devices and tablets, and expanding the scope of their business and their relationship with their readers. At Clarkson Potter, Anna Mintz has been promoted to senior publicist and Sean Boyles has been promoted to publicist. In addition, Catherine Cullen has been promoted to publicist at the Crown imprint. In addition to Steve Kasdin‘s ongoing role as director of digital strategy at Curtis Brown, he is now taking on clients for representation as well, […]
Discounting of Macmillan Books to Start By Next Week
When Macmillan ceo John Sargent said in a letter Friday morning that discounting of their ebooks under the settlement with Department of Justice “will take effect quickly,” he really meant it. The court filing is more blunt on the matter: “Macmillan must allow its e-book retailers to discount within three business days of agreeing to the settlement, even if it has not formalized new contracts with retailers.” DOJ writes that “the proposed Macmillan Final Judgment does not give Macmillan a choice” in notifying and renegotiating with retailers–as the original settlement had done–“to provide for more prompt relief to consumers.” But it’s […]