Amazon has posted their annual lists of bestselling items for 2008 from a variety of categories. Stephenie Meyer’s BREAKING DAWN was their bestselling book (in units) while the Kindle was the top-selling item in the electronics category (alongside such other hits as the top home and garden item, the Oster 4207 electric wine opener.) In “products that were reviewed most positively,” Ron Paul’s THE REVOLUTION: A Manifesto led all others among books, while the Kindle lost out in electronics to a Samsung 46-inch LCD television. In their list of “products most frequently purchased as gifts” during the year, Kindle led […]
Berkely Cancels Holocaust Memoir
Publication of Herman Rosenblat’s forthcoming ANGEL AT THE FENCE: The True Story of a Love That Survived, has been cancelled by Berkley, which initially defend the book, “after receiving new information from Rosenblatts’s agent, Andrea Hurst” according to a short statement. They add that the publisher “will demand that the author and the agent return all money that they have received for this work.” Earlier in the week Berkley had told the AP that Holocaust expert Michael Berenbaum said the book’s “general outline” was credible and hedged by asserting that “any memoir based on the memories of a survivor is […]
The Next Memoir Takedown
Herman Rosenblat’s forthcoming Holocaust memoir from Berkley ANGEL AT THE FENCE: The True Story of a Love That Survived, has been the focus of an international takedown effort for a while now (as we’ve been regularly advised by email) and now Gabriel Sherman at The New Republic files a long piece on the book. “The power of Herman’s narrative is largely due to the fact that the incredible story actually happened. Herman himself writes of his first encounter with Roma with such disbelief. ‘I noticed a small girl hiding behind a tree on the other side of the fence. I […]
NYT on eBooks
Finishing out the year of the most overcovered story, the NYT looks at the state of play for ebooks. Following massive increases in percentage sales, one percent of total volume at the big houses is in sight! There’s little new here, but the article does introduce another interesting fake statistic: “Amazon’s Kindle version of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle now represents 23 percent of total Amazon sales of the book, according to Brian Murray, chief executive of HarperCollins Publishers.” Also, “after some initial hesitation, authors like Danielle Steel and John Grisham are soon expected to add their titles to the […]
Borders Buys Another Month
Borders announced yesterday that they have extended the deadline by one month on both the repayment of their $42.5 million senior secured term loan to Pershing Square, as well as the “put” to require Pershing to purchase their Paperchase subsidiary for $65 million. Both deadlines have been extended to February 16. In late November when reporting quarterly earnings Borders said they were “in discussions with Pershing Square regarding an alternative financing transaction.” The nearly worthless stock has still managed to decline another 20 percent in early trading today, though Barnes & Noble has suffered weak trading the past two days […]
ScrollMotion Unveils Deals with Multiple Publishers for iPhone Books
We mentioned ScrollMotion’s interface for iPhone books a few weeks ago and now the company is unveiling some of their other arrangements with multiple publishers (ok, so they’re tech guys, not publicists). Random House gives their press release in advance to AP and as result the story only mentions that the company will release a dozen books on iPhone, including Christopher Paolini’s Brisingr, Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy and Peter Matthiessen’s award-winning Shadow Country. Wired reports more broadly via a blog that ScrollMotion’s release will include such other books as Kindle bestseller Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, along with Scott […]