#1: The Passage by Justin CroninBackseat Saints by Joshilyn JacksonThe Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee BenderThe Madonnas of Echo Park by Brando SkyhorseFirst Contact: Or, It’s Later Than You Think by Evan ManderySo Cold the River by Michael KorytaJunkyard Dogs: A Walt Longmire Mystery by Craig JohnsonThe Marrowbone Marble Company by Glenn TaylorTake Good Care of the Garden and the Dogs: Family, Friendships, and Faith in Small-Town Alaska by Heather LendeSeven Year Switch by Claire CookThe Burning Wire: A Lincoln Rhyme Novel by Jeffery DeaverA Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer EganWho Fears Death by Nnedi OkoraforMy […]
Publishers Report Strong Initial Sales and Gaining at iBookstore
It was just a year ago that Amazon surprised publishing executives when previewing the SuperKindle by announcing that Kindle sales had spiked to “35 percent of books where we have Kindle editions.” With this year’s launch of the iPad and Apple’s iBookstore, however, everyone has been quite focused on assessing the impact of this new entrant in the accelerating overall ebook market. Apple’s announced numbers of over one million devices and 1.5 million ebooks downloaded so far sound strong, albeit vague. On the device level, working from reasonable postulations you can view the iPad launch as boosting the market for […]
People, Awards, Etc.
Courtney Young has been promoted to editor at Portfolio, Sentinel and Current. The Copyright Clearance Center has named veteran attorney Iris Geik as associate general counsel. She was in-house counsel at WGBH and, since 1994, had served as an outside counsel to Reed Elsevier and other organizations on legal and copyright policy issues. Judges have been named for the 2010 National Book Awards and publishers can (and must) request entry guidelines. “The postmark deadline for the Awards entry form is June 15.” In vague news about forthcoming books, St. Martin’s will publish Andrew Morton‘s embargoed Angelina Jolie Bio on August […]
Sales Fall Again at Simon & Schuster
Sales at Simon & Schuster fell 6 percent in their fiscal first quarter, down $10 million to $151.7 million. But adjusted OIBDA improved to $3.6 million, still slim but an improvement over essentially no earnings this time last year. The unit did take an additional $1.5 million restructuring charge during this quarter, related to previously-announced reorganizations of their Australian unit the US field sales force. Parent company CBS blames “the continued soft retail market,” which was “partially offset by significantly higher digital sales…such as ebooks, audio downloads and stand-alone applications.” The improvement in margins is “the result of strong cost […]
With or Without You, Your Google Editions Will Have Unique ISBNs
Google has finally made public their decision on identifiers for products sold through Google Editions. They will use the industry-standard ISBN–as opposed to vendors like Amazon, who assign their own unique ASINs to Kindle books. Google hopes that publishers will assign unique ISBNs to their Google Editions products on their own, but if they don’t, Google will assign numbers themselves in an agreement announced today with US ISBN agency Bowker. Google’s Tom Turvey says in the announcement “this decision was driven by the book industry’s strong reliance on the ISBN along with our partner-centric business and distribution models. We look […]
In Reorganization, Octopus USA to Close As UK Cuts List and Consults on Job Reductions
“Strategic changes” from the Octopus Publishing Group in London include the closing of Octopus USA, launched within Hachette Book Group USA at the beginning of last year. As a result, USA associate publisher Jonathan Stolper and director of publicity and marketing Andrea Glickson’s jobs are being eliminated, though the company says they “launched and managed the Octopus USA business very successfully, and Octopus’ profile in North America has grown significantly thanks to their hard work.” HBG’s client services group will continue to handle sales and distribution of Octopus titles here. In the broader reorganization of the unit, they will focus […]