Amazon Offers to Acquire Audible This morning Amazon announced it is offering to acquire Audible, valuing the company at approximately $300 million. Amazon is offering $11.5 a share, a 23 percent premium over yesterday’s closing price (though substantially lower than the company’s 2007 high point of $14 a share). The transaction is expected to close by the second quarter of 2008. Ever since it was indicated in 2005 that Amazon was interested in selling digital audiobooks directly instead of through its partnership with Audible — bolstered by the launch of Amazon’s MP3 music service last year and its acquisition of […]

Oprah Picks Tolle Oprah Winfrey has gone back to inspirational nonfiction but stayed with men, selecting Eckhart Tolle’s A NEW EARTH: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose as her latest Book Club selection. 13 Arrested in Plot Against Pamuk The Guardian reports: “Thirteen people have been arrested in Turkey as part of an investigation into an ultra-nationalist gang reported to be planning the assassination of Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk. According to reports in the Turkish press, the author of international bestsellers including My Name is Red was targeted as part of a campaign to sow chaos in preparation for a military […]

Recorded Books for Sale — Along with All of Haights Cross Following a “comprehensive strategic review,” Haights Cross Communications has decided to sell off all of its assets — including Recorded Books, which publishes unabridged audiobooks for libraries, schools, and consumers. For the first three quarters of the fiscal year, as of the end of September 2007, that unit had sales of $64.3 million. Release Editis, France’s No. 2 Publisher, Also for Sale Newspaper La Tribune reported (without citing sources) that French investment company Wendell intends to sell publishing conglomerate Editis by the middle of this year. The country’s second […]

That Didn’t Take Long: News Corp. Settles Who knows why they didn’t pay her earlier, but News Corp. has paid Judith Regan now — an undisclosed amount, of course — and stated, “After carefully considering the matter, we accept Ms. Regan’s position that she did not say anything that was anti-Semitic in nature, and further believe that Ms. Regan is not anti-Semitic.” They call the settlement “an equitable, confidential settlement, with no admission of liability by any party.” But does it get charged to HarperCollins’ bottom line, or is it a corporate expense? The next quarterly report, due in early […]

DOJ Sets Conditions for Pearson Harcourt Purchase The Department of Justice officially filed an antitrust lawsuit against Pearson’s proposed purchase of Harcourt Assessment, and at the same time the department has filed a proposed settlement. It wants Pearson to sell off Harcourt’s behavior assessment tests, its abnormal personality clinical test, and either the spoken and oral language assessments or the language fundamental evaluation. “Under the proposed settlement, the Department’s Antitrust Division must approve the buyer of each of the divested assets.” Justice spokesperson Gina Talamona indicates this is standard procedure. Justice says in their release “the transaction, as originally proposed, […]