Deal Reports Just e-mail to deals@PublishersMarketplace if you aren’t using the online form linked below. Report a deal using the online form The Key As usual, the handy key to our Lunch deal categories. While all reports are always welcome, those that include a category will generally receive a higher listing when it comes time to put them all together. “nice deal” $1 – $49,000 “very nice deal” $50,000 – $99,000 “good deal” $100,000 – $250,000 “significant deal” $251,000 – $499,000 “major deal” $500,000 and up FICTION Debut Ellen Horan’s 31 BOND STREET, interweaving fiction with actual events surrounding […]
Putting a Price on AbeBooks
TechVibes–where former ABE executive (and still director) Boris Wertz is also a director and investor–estimates a price tag for Amazon’s recent purchase of $90 million to $120 million: “According to the AbeBooks website, in 2007 they did $190 million in gross merchandise volume and had 13,500 bookseller members on their platform. Based on AbeBooks’ 13.5% combined commission/service fee and minimum monthly subscription fee of $25, AbeBooks’ revenue in 2007 was approximately $30 million. If you look at comparable online e-commerce businesses like eBay with a current market cap of $32 Billion and 2007 annual revenue of $7.6 Billion, it’s safe […]
Another Kindle Guess
If you did had a dollar for every reporter with an inside source who tells them how many Kindles have really sold, you’d at least be able to buy some Amazon stock. Now TechCrunch has decided their source isn’t playing them, and declares in a headline: “We know how many Kindles Amazon has sold…. 240,000 Kindles have been shipped since November, according to a source close to Amazon with direct knowledge of the numbers.” Not even a source at Amazon, but “close to Amazon.”TC
Rushdie Takes the Bait; Threatens to Sue
File it under smart people who do dumb things. Instead of ignoring, or laughing off, the book ON HER MAJESTY’S SERVICE by Ron Evans, who guarded Rushdie when he was in hiding, the knighted author is threatening to sue–which doesn’t really invalidate the book’s assertions. Rushdie tells the Guardian, “He is portraying me as mean, nasty, tight-fisted, arrogant and extremely unpleasant. In my humble opinion I am none of those things.” He gives them paragraphs of quotes and denials, culminating in this: “This is not a free speech issue, this is libel – there is a difference between those two […]
Pease's Eye for Talent
The Boston Globe focuses on editor Roland Pease’s consistently sharp judgment in discovering great fiction writers. He edited the US version of Rawi Hage’s DENIRO’S GAME, before Hage won this year’s IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. For 15 years at his own company Zoland Books, and now as an editor for Steerforth Press (which bought Zoland), Pease was the first publisher of Ha Jin; Peter Behrens’ Governor General’s Award-winner THE LAW OF DREAMS; AND MORE. “Four of his past five titles, including Castle Freeman’s Go With Me, were named to Barnes & Noble’s Discover Great New Writers series, said Chip Fleischer, […]
LA's Acres of Books to Go Fallow
The LAT reports on Long Beach-based store Acres of Books: “After 74 years in business, the independent bookstore giant with an inventory that topped 1 million volumes is closing down to make way for a redevelopment project.” Owners Jackie and Phil Smith sold their building to the city three months ago for $2.8 million.LAT