Under the Banner of Book and Beyond, Random House UK is launching enhanced ebooks with “a range of additional content such as videos, games, quizzes, photos, author interviews, interactive graphics and the option to listen to or read the text at the start of each chapter.” (In other words, they do not work on current dedicated ereaders, running Adobe Digital Editions, but are fine on computers–but then there are very few ereaders in consumers hands in the UK anyway.) The first ten titles include Nothing to Lose by Lee Child (with a digital graphic novel); The Book Thief by Markus […]
BOMC First Fiction Award
Somebody did like Andrew Davidson’s novel THE GARGOYLE: Book-of-the-Month Club has named the book the 2008 winner of their First Fiction Award.
Bookstore Burrowings
So one of my wonkier habits is scrolling through the lengthy SEC filings of major public companies in the book industry, exacerbated by recent annual reports from Barnes & Noble, Borders, and Books-a-Million. (The detailed filings often share interesting tidbits we don’t get to in the basic earnings releases and ensuing conference calls.) Among the things we’ve learned in the past couple of weeks: Borders sold just over $2 billion worth of books last, out of total revenue of $3.242 billion, or a little under 62 percent of sales. Books-a-Million, on the other hand, says that 83 percent of their […]
Internet Archive Say GBS Settlement Gives Google Unfair Use of Orphan Works
Among many actual (and potential) objectors to the Google Book Search settlement, the Internet Archive has requested a pre-motion conference with the judge to get permission to intervene in the case. Their letter hits on one of the most contentious issues raised by the settlement, that it essentially gives Google a uniquely-protected monopoly over unclaimed orphan works of uncertain copyright status: “it effectively limits the liability for the identified uses of orphan works of one party alone, Google.” As they note later, anyone else “would not be able to use orphan works broadly without being exposed to claims of infringement…and […]
Random's "More Selective" Acquisitions
NPR’s story on blockbuster book deals from earlier this week was pretty standard fare, but we did take note of the moment when Random House Publishing Group spokesperson Carol Schneider said, “we’re acquring fewer books.” Asked for more information, she told us, “There are no specific numbers or formula involved here–we’re simply being more selective in all categories–literary, commercial, blockbuster.”NPR
UK Hardcovers Fall Hard, But US Market Shows Resilience
The Bookseller reports on Nielsen BookScan UK data that shows “a slump across hardcover sales,” as unit sales for the top 5,000 hardcovers fell 14.3 percent for the first quarter of 2009. And the top 400 hardcover fiction title sales fell 17.2 percent in units in that period. In the US, however, a big rise in juvenile hardcovers helped the total market for hardcovers rise by almost 3 percent in the first thirteen weeks. Despite dire selected reports, for the outlets covered in the US by Nielsen BookScan, total unit sales for the first quarter declined only 2.1 percent, at […]