Buy Kindle, Love Jeff Jeff Bezos’s annual letter to shareholders is all about Kindle, casting the device as “exemplif[ying] our philosophy and long-term investment approach” as originally expressed in his 1997 letter (the year that Amazon jumped from $16 million in sales to to $148 million). He observes: “We also knew we shouldn’t try to copy every last feature of a book—we could never out-book the book. We’d have to add new capabilities—ones that could never be possible with a traditional book. “The early days of Amazon.com provide an analog. It was tempting back then to believe that an online […]

Book Sales Down 8 Percent at Courier Units “Weak sales at Dover Publications and Creative Homeowner” led to an 8 percent drop in revenues at Courier’s book publishing division, registering $16.8 million for the second quarter. Creative Homeowner suffered in particular from troubles in the housing market, but Dover sales were also down “nearly $1 million.” Pretax income for the division was $202,000, versus $1.4 million last year. Release But Book Sales, and Profits, Rise at WH Smith Reporting results for the six months ending February 29, UK retailer WH Smith said that same-store book sales rose 2 percent compared […]

Nelson Says No Thanks to BEA Thomas Nelson has said the thing that trade show organizers fear the most: “We have determined that, for Thomas Nelson, these trade shows provide very little return,” and they are pulling out of both BEA and he International Christian Retail Show. CEO Michael Hyatt says, “We have been discussing this move for some time. But the current economic downturn is forcing us to re-evaluate the expenditure of every marketing dollar.” Hyatt adds, “Historically, trade shows have played an important role in publishing and bookselling. I have attended scores of them and have very fond […]

Borders Files, with Added Info on Cash Shortage London happenings notwithstanding, the top story on our running radar has been the perilous position of Borders. Yesterday the company lifted the veil slightly on their finances in filing their delayed 10-k, the long version of a company’s annual statistics filed with the SEC. The short take is that Wall Street has knocked the stock down about another 6 percent in today’s trading, though markets are still open. The filing is long roster of financial fine print, but in broad strokes it paints a fuller picture of a company that’s steadily running […]

Macmillan Drops Andrew Morton’s Tom Cruise in UK In the UK Macmillan will not publish Andrew Morton’s biography of Tom Cruise. A spokesperson tells the Telegraph, “Cruise had so many complaints that by the time our lawyers had been through it, there was nothing left but red ink. We have explored every possible option, but have concluded that once the potentially defamatory sections are taken out, there is not enough left to make a good read. Understandably, Andrew is very upset, but apparently he thinks that he may have more luck with another publisher. Good luck to him.” Telegraph Also […]