Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s trade and reference division has created a Digital Strategy and Planning Group, led by svp Cheryl Cramer Toto (who had been the company’s vp of development and planning, a job that included leading the integration of Harcourt and Houghton Mifflin). Under Toto are vp of digital content development David Jost, vp of digital business development David Langevin, and Sanj Kharbanda, who has been promoted to vp of digital market strategy. He “will identify unique market opportunities for Houghton digital content and develop and implement innovative consumer-facing programs.” Yesterday the RAND Corporation announced they were lowering list price […]
Bezos: No Profits (?), No Color, No Stats
Missed during BEA madness was Jeff Bezos’s webcast speech to Amazon shareholders last Thursday. At least as interpreted by some, Bezos seemed to indicate that Kindle isn’t making money for the company yet (despite wild analysis by Wall Street analysts who don’t understand the business). Bezos said the company “is investing very heavily” in its digital business but “I don’t want people to think it’s a big cash-flow generator for us.” Speaking of the company’s businesses in China and cloud computing he said they were in “investment mode” and added, “we continue to plant these seeds and our experience — […]
At British Conference, Ian Hudson Reviews Problems
Outgoing Publishers Association president Hudson of Random House UK spoke to the Book Industry Conference about “some of the key current concerns from a trade publisher’s perspective” and urged that publishers “address them together.” “The first and perhaps greatest current concern of trade publishers is the credit-worthiness of their customers.” The second is that “many small and medium sized trade publishers are themselves having to manage their own cash flow very carefully…. Indeed, some publishers I’ve talked to tell me that their ability to deliver their autumn publishing programs is being limited by the credit crunch and their difficulty in […]
Closer Reading of Google Edition
The NYT reported on Google’s continuing discussions with publishers of their plans to sell online access to the full text of some books currently available for searching and limited reading in their Partner Program with publishers. An offline component, similar to Google Gears, will allow purchased books to be cached in the browser. And Google has indicated to publishers that they will allow some form of limited printing (done a single page at a time) and limited copy and paste privileges, probably in the range of 20 percent of a book’s content. Now dubbed Google Edition, this initiative is the […]
Screen-Maker PVI to Acquire E Ink for $215
Here’s a sign of the actual (and anticipated) growth of the market for e-readers: Prime View International, the company the manufactures the screens for both Kindle and the Sony Reader, is buying E Ink. “The new company will expand capacity and develop improvements for ePaper display screens that are easy on the eyes, long-lasting, and highly portable.” (PVI bought Philips Electronics’ ePaper business in 2005.) Interestingly, the company quotes in their press release iSuppli analyst Vinita Jakhanwal, saying “the market for electronic book devices such as the Sony Reader and Amazon Kindle is forecasted to grow from 1.1 million units […]
BEA Wrapup: The Forces of Contradiction
Enough ink has been spilled and will be spilled here and elsewhere about the big stories of BEA – the decreased attendance, the absence of certain major publishers on the show floor, the call for new ventures, all things e-book. But if there’s one big takeaway from this year’s convention, it’s that, at least to my mind, it was all about contradictory forces. Yesterday was the last Sunday of BEA, and yet most everyone I spoke with found it to be the most relaxing and enjoyable day of the show – probably because there were no expectations, smaller crowds and […]