Members of the Oxford University Press USA union will stage a one-day strike on Tuesday, June 18, and will protest outside the company’s US headquarters from 8 AM – 12 PM. The union has made several claims that the company has violated US labor law. In March, the National Labor Relations Board found merit in the claims that OUP has moved work outside the bargaining unit by hiring non-union employees to replace union members who left the company. According to a union press release, the NLRB has not yet filed the official complaint. The union also asserts that the company […]
Adult Book Sales Grew 25% In April
The Association of American Publishers (AAP) released StatShot sales data for April, reporting $657 million in adult and children’s sales for the month, an increase of 19 percent over last year, when sales reached only $551.5 million — and still strong compared to $629 million in 2022. The strong AAP data comes as Circana Bookscan continues to show renewed strength among consumers, with five consecutive weeks of print sales running ahead of the same period a year ago. For weekly sales ending June 8, Bookscan showed print sales up 3 percent over the same week in 2023. Adult books sold […]
Self-Published Author Sues Amazon Over Audiobook Monopoly
Romance author Christine DeMaio, who writes as CD Reiss, has filed a proposed class action lawsuit against Amazon, claiming that the retail giant’s dominance in audiobook sales eliminates competition and leads to supracompetitive pricing for self-published authors. The suit is filed by class-action law firm Hagens Berman, which was the first to bring the ebook price fixing suit against publishers and Apple in 2011. (Since then, less successfully, the firm has filed suits against Amazon and the large trade publishers over the retailer’s ebook monopoly.) The filing states that Amazon, through the Audible ACX program, charges independent authors a fee […]
People 6/17
Anne Speyer has joined Marysue Rucci Books as executive editor. Previously she was at Ballantine Bantam Dell.
The New List For June 13
Last week, we announced our bestseller list, The New List, which exclusively tracks new releases based on Circana Bookscan data. With lists updating on Fridays, we’ll bring you highlights weekly in Lunch, along with the complete fiction and nonfiction hardcover lists. For the week ending June 8, Eruption by Michael Crichton tops the hardcover nonfiction list, with Camino Ghosts by John Grisham at No. 2 (it was No. 1 the previous week). Stephen King’s stories You Like It Darker: Stories was in third. The title that has been on the list longest is Think Twice by Harlan Coben, now tenth, which […]