Amazon is delighted to declare “strong customer adoption” of the Kindle Owners Lending Library and oodles of money for participating Kindle Select (e.g. Kindle-exclusive) self-published authors. Interestingly, however, the extra money that Amazon claims participants received–“an incremental 26 percent in December”–is roughly equal to the proclaimed market share of No. 2 ebook player Nook, where Select authors and publishers can no longer sell. Which begs the question of whether participants are actually making more money in toto. Even the top 10 authors–whom Amazon says earned over $70,000–only got a 30 percent boost over their ebook sales with their lending library […]
People, Etc.
Barry Landis is joining Howard Books as vp, associate publisher next week. He has been running a Nashville-based consulting firm, Landis Entertainment & Media Partners, and spent 20 years working for multiple divisions of Warner Bros., including serving as president of Word Label Group. Stephanie Beam has joined Sony’s Digital Reading Business Division as new merchandising manager, eBooks. Previously, she has worked as national account sales manager at Sterling Publishing and Random House. At Sony, she will manage the Reader Store site merchandising and act as relationship manager for publishing partners. At Egmont USA, Greg Ferguson has been promoted to […]
How Do eBooks Change the 2011 Bestsellers?
USA Today has published their list of the top 100 bestsellers for 2011. As the only major list that has used combined print and ebook data for the entire year, they provide the best look at the true, overall bestsellers for the year. We wondered how much the inclusion of ebook sales changes the nature of the year’s top-selling books. The answer, in a word, is: barely. Below are comparisons of USA Today’s top 15 adult fiction and nonfiction books (with print and ebook sales combined; the actual USA top 100 rank is in parentheses) versus Nielsen Bookscan’s top 15 […]
Nancy Pearl Partners With Amazon For ‘Book Lust Rediscoveries’ Series
Amazon announced Wednesday morning that noted former librarian and frequent NPR contributor Nancy Pearl will launch a new curated line under the Book Lust Rediscoveries banner, reissuing out-of-print books originally published between 1960 and 2000 that Pearl had previously recommended in her title Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment and Reason. Part of the Amazon Encore imprint, the series will republish up to six titles a year in digital, paperback and audiobook editions starting in April with Merle Miller’s A GAY AND MELANCHOLY SOUND (originally published in 1961) and then in June with Rhian Ellis’s AFTER LIFE (originally […]
Bookselling: Thalia Admits Big Drop In Earnings; Random House Extends Free Shipping; Two Fall Regional Shows Merge
Germany’s largest bookstore chain Thalia is facing the same challenges as major booksellers in English-speaking countries, with parent company Dougles reducing their forecast EBITDA for the current fiscal year by a range of 15 to 30 percent, driving shares down sharply. The company warned that they will incur unspecified “expenditures for restructuring at Thalia” and blamed “the structural challenges in the entire books sector” for the earnings reduction. One German analyst told Bloomberg the company needs to make clear the restructuring costs and “and in general has to provide solutions and measures to get rid of the structural problems at […]
Awards: Finalists for Man Asian Literary Prize, The Story Prize, and More
The 3 finalists for The Story Prize were announced Wednesday morning, with the winner to be named at an awards ceremony on March 21: Don DeLillo, The Angel Esmeralda (Scribner) Steven Millhauser, We Others (Knopf) Edith Pearlman, Binocular Vision (Lookout Books) The Jewish Book Award winners were named, including Simon Sebag Montefiore’s Jerusalem: The Biography as book of the year, with Aharon Appelfeld’s Until the Dawn’s Light winning the fiction award. These seven novels (instead of the usual five candidates) made the Man Asian Literary Prize shortlist: Jamil Ahmad, The Wandering Falcon (Penguin India/Hamish Hamilton/Riverhead), Pakistan Jahnavi Barua, Rebirth (Penguin India/Penguin Books), India Rahul Bhattacharya, […]