Editorial director of Book Business and Publishing Executive magazines Noelle Skodzinski has left the company, publisher Matt Steinmetz confirms to DBW. Palgrave Macmillan is launching a new imprint, Palgrave Pivot, that will blend journal and digital-short publishing models. At an average of 100 pages, they will publish works of a length “between the journal article and the conventional monograph” and “undertake to publish within 3 months of acceptance after full peer review.” The focus is on “new important research, or are a review of an area with broad appeal.” Publishing both digitally and on demand, they will sell titles individually as well as in […]
Early Results from Pottermore, Or Less
Pottermore executive Charlie Redmayne told Radio Litopia that in the first three days after launching on March 27, JK Rowling’s web site sold over £1 million worth of ebooks. And he proclaimed, as you would expect according to script, that initial sales were higher than expectations. “We had budgeted for a much lower figure,” Redmayne insists, noting that sales have softened since the splash debut. “It is still running at a much higher rate than I was anticipating, even for the launch. It is still surpassing anything I’ve ever seen for e-book sales.” Given the years of pent-up demand and […]
Amazon Announces Spanish-Language Kindle Store In the US
Amazon has officially created an “eBooks Kindle en Español” store for Spanish-language ebooks for US customers at www.amazon.com/tiendakindle. Barnes & Noble has made this category a priority for the past couple of years and is thought to have over 50,000 Spanish-language ebooks available–but Kindle says it has “the most Spanish-language bestsellers, as measured by Nielsen.” They say they offer “over 30,000 titles,” and are offering an exclusive work of nonfiction by Paulo Coelho, “El Libro de los Manuales.” They have translated some Kindle Single into Spanish, and Spanish-language titles are welcome through the KDP publishing platform (just as Nook’s PubIt does). In the release, […]
Settlement With Justice By Some Publishers Looms…Or Not
Since last week, people with knowledge of settlement discussions between book publishers using the agency model for ebooks and the Justice Department have said with authority that some kind of agreement might be imminent. Absent an actual settlement and final details of how it would work, we didn’t think there was a story there–given the weeks of stories elsewhere saying there might be a settlement soon. But the Justice Department apparently continues to keep the WSJ informed, fueling the presumption within publishing that they are trying to press in public a case that they have yet to close in private […]
David Frum to Release A Novel, with Agency WME As His Publisher
The end of this month will see the release of political commentator (and contributor to Newsweek/Daily Beast and CNN) David Frum’s first novel, a timely political satire called PATRIOTS (which opens as America’s first black president has just lost re-election). It’s arguably the first original publication from literary agency William Morris Endeavor’s epublishing brand 212 Books. (The agency also helped facilitate client James Frey’s direct ebook release of James Frey’s The Final Testament of the Holy Bible.) The Huffington Post has serialization rights and will start posting chapters of the book beginning the week of April 23 (prior to the […]
Amazon Asserts The Power of Exclusives
Amazon issued another of their periodic press releases underscoring how the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library “not only generates additional revenue from loans for authors, but actually increases customer purchases of authors’ work as well (even those authors, say, of high-profile YA movie tie-ins who are not there by choice) and detailing the money made by self-published authors who elect to epublish exclusively with the company. The new statistic is that “16 of the top 100 best-selling paid Kindle books in March are exclusive to the Kindle Store.” (For people paying attention, they announced that KOLL comprises over 100,000 titles more […]