WARNING! PLEASE READ ABOUT THIRD PARTY ADS: Authorlink encourages writers to thoroughly investigate third-party ads on this or any other site offering free and easy publishing help. We subscribe to the highest standards of the traditional publishing industry, and do not necessarily endorse any advertiser on our site. Also, Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on our site enabling display of ads based on user visits to our site and to others on the Internet. Users may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy. Authorlink guidelines, #7 includes more on our own policies
NEW YORK, NY/AUTHORLINK NEWS/02/04/10--Barnes & Noble stock prices rose 18 percent earlier this week after the bookseller's largest outside shareholder, billionaire Ron Burkle, sought to waive a takeover prevention rule that, if overturned, would allow Burkle to acquire as much as 37 percent of the company-a share equal to the founding Riggio family's ownership.
/02/02/10--Amazon.com this past weekend capitulated to Macmillan publishing company's pressures to let the publisher set higher prices for its e-books. Amazon's blackout of Macmillan's book titles looks as if it has been partially, if not completely, restored. But negotiations continue this week with no further public statements.
GUTERSLOH, GERMANY/AUTHORLINK NEWS/02/04/10--Bertelsmann AG, the international media company which also owns Random House in the USA, is offering to buy back investors' profit
participation certificates for more than their original value when purchased in 2001. The offer would earn shareholders 21% on the closing price of stocks as of February 1, 2010, and exceeds the average price of the past 12 months by 48%.
NEW YORK, NY/AUTHORLINK NEWS/02/03/10--The Authors Guild, advocacy group for writers, is lending its support to Macmillan Publishers in its fight with Amazon over e-book business models.
Published Thursday, February 4, 2010 (for the sales week ended Sunday, January 31, 2010). Based on reporting from many hundreds of independent bookstores across the United States. For information on more titles, please visit www.IndieBound.org
NEW YORK, NY/AUTHORLINK NEWS/February 2, 2010—HarperCollins, owned by News Corporation, increased its operating income by three-fold to $65 million for the second quarter ended December 31, 2009. The year-over-year increase is attributed to higher sales at the General and the Children’s Book divisions which were partially offset by higher royalty and manufacturing costs. Second quarter results included strong sales of Going Rogue by Sarah Palin, Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak and The Vampire Diaries by L.J. Smith. During the quarter, HarperCollins had 48 books on The New York Times bestseller list, including seven titles that reached the number one spot.
NEW YORK, NY/AUTHORLINK NEWS/January 27, 2010—The families of John Steinbeck and Woody Guthrie have decided to opt in to the revised Google Book Search settlement, according to a recent report in PW. Gail Steinbeck, who initially opposed the settlement, and Arlo Guthrie, on behalf of his singer-songwriter father, the late Woody Guthrie, said they would not bring a separate lawsuit against Google. Ms. Steinbeck is the wife of the late John Steinbeck’s son, Thomas, also a novelist. Other groups, however, staunchly oppose the agreement.
BLOOMINGTON, IN /AUTHORLINK NEWS/January 28, 2010--Author Solutions (ASI), with an initiative to become the world’s largest publisher of original digital content, is hitting a few brick walls from traditional writers’ organizations. The company, which has recently signed agreements with Harlequin and Thomas Nelson to develop self-publishing imprints, faces stiff opposition from Romance Writers of America, Mystery Writers of American, and Science Fiction Writers Association, who oppose the move of traditional publishers into the subsidy publishing business.
ANN ARBOR, Mich./Authorlink News/January 26, 2010--Borders Group Board Chairman Mick McGuire today announced that Ron Marshall has resigned as President, Chief Executive Officer and a Director of the company, effective immediately. Marshall has accepted the role of Chief Executive Officer with another publicly held retailer, but will assist Borders in the process of transitioning to new leadership. Only a week ago, Borders issued a statement debunking a debtwire.com article that claimed Borders has extended the length of time it takes to pay its small publisher vendors by 40%.
NEW YORK, NY/AUTHORLINK NEWS/January 25, 2010--HarperCollins Publishers has broadened its digital publishing initiative with the launch this week of inkpop (www.inkpop.com). The company calls it the first interactive writing platform for teens to be backed by a major U.S. publisher. Inkpop, created by HarperTeen to attract young readers and writers, combines community publishing, user-generated content, and social networking to connect rising stars in teen literature with talent-spotting readers and publishing professionals.
NEW YORK, NY/AUTHORLINK NEWS/January 28, 2010—A steady stream of big-name authors are signing exclusive deals with Amazon.com’s Kindle. The latest author (and first from the UK) to sign with Amazon is Booker Prize Winner Ian McEwan, according to The Bookseller. The deal, which reportedly will double McEwan’s royalties to 50% for five backlist titles, was secured through e-book publisher, Rosetta Books. Stephen Covey and Paulo Coelhoe also have signed similar deals at Amazon.
NEW YORK, NY/AUTHORLINK NEWS/January 28, 2010--Barnes & Noble has confirmed that earlier this month the company laid off an undisclosed number of digital-division employees, including its director of digital content, Mike Ferrari, according to an online report at Daily finance.
SEATTLE, NEW YORK /AUTHORLINK NEWS/January 27, 2010—Amazon.com, Inc., Penguin Group (USA) and CreateSpace are accepting submissions for the third annual Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition at www.amazon.com/abna now through midnight EST on February 7, 2010.
La VERGNE, TN/AUTHORLINK NEWS/January 20, 2010--Ingram Publisher Services Inc. late last week signed a new distribution agreement with award winning Canadian publisher Fitzhenry & Whiteside.
BOSTON, MASS./AUTHORLINK NEWS/January 19, 2010—Random House carried home six top awards yesterday in the American Library Association’s 2010 Youth Media Awards. Winners of the Caldecott and Newbery awards were announced at the ALA’s conference in Boston.
ANN ARBOR, MICH/AUTHORLINK NEWS/January 18, 2010—Borders Group this week reported that consolidated sales for the 11-week holiday period ended Jan. 16, 2010 declined 13.7% from the same period last year to $846.8 million.
NEW YORK, NY/AUTHORLINK NEWS/January 18, 2010—The American Library Association today announced winners of the 2010 Newbery and Caldecott awards at its midwinter conference in Boston.
NEW YORK, NY/AUTHORLINK NEWS/January 18, 2010—Book sales for the month of November 2009 increased by 10.9 per cent at $808.5 million and increased by 4.9 percent for the year, The Association of American Publishers (AAP) reports.
NEW YORK, NY/AUTHORLINK NEWS/January 20, 2010—Amazon.com announced this week that it will increase royalties for authors and publishers for books sold on the Kindle e-book reader. Effective June 30, authors and publishers will earn 70 percent of a book’s list price, less delivery costs. The new royalty rate is limited to e-books priced between $2.99 and $9.99 and to those titles whose list price is 20 percent below the lowest price for the physical book.
NEW YORK, NY/AUTHORLINK NEWS/01/13/10-- Barnes & Noble College Booksellers, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Barnes & Noble, Inc. has created a multi-channel textbook rental program for college students that the company says could result in millions of dollars of savings for college students across America. Announced this past Monday, Barnes & Noble College is the first nationwide bookseller to offer a multi-channel program.
NEW YORK, NY/AUTHORLINK NEWS/01/13/10--Barnes & Noble, Inc. reported a 5% decrease in store sales over the nine-week holiday period from November 1, 2009, to January 2, 2010. The world's largest bookseller had sales of $1.1 billion for the period, with comparable store sales sliding own 5.4%. The online store, Barnesandnoble.com, however, had a 17% increase for the period, with holiday sales total $134 million.
AUTHORLINK NEWS/01/13/10--The Christian Booksellers Association (CBA), last week asked the Department of Justice to investigate what they call "illegal, predatory pricing" by Amazon.com, Target and Wal-Mart. Similar actions have been taken by the American Booksellers Association.
SAN FRANCISCO/AUTHORLINK NEWS/01/13/10--The majority of local news still originates from newspapers and their web sites, despite the growth of the Internet, according to a study by Pew Research center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, as reported on the blog, Taragana.
NEW YORK, NY/AUTHORLINK NEWS/01/14/10--Farrar, Straus and Giroux will launch an eponymous imprint called Margaret Ferguson Books in 2011, naming the unit after the 30-year editorial veteran at FSG.
Published Thursday, January 14, 2010 (for the sales week ended Sunday, January 10, 2010). Based on reporting from many hundreds of independent
bookstores across the United States. For information on more titles, please visit www.IndieBound.org
NEW YORK, NY/AUTHORLINK NEWS/January 13, 2010--Scott Lubeck has begun his new job as executive director of the Book Industry Study Group and will preside over the January 21 BISG board meeting.
NEW YORK, NY/AUTHORLINK NEWS/01/06/10--Overall unit sales of books through December 20 totaled 724 million, a drop of only 3% compared to 2008, according to Nielsen BookScan (via www.crainsnewyork.com) which tracks the majority of book sales. Surprisingly, adult fiction rose slightly to 208 million units, a gain of about 1,000 units over the previous year. However, nonfiction titles were off 7% (227 million units) from the previous year.
NEW YORK, NY/AUTHORLINK/01/06/10--Scholastic Corporation began the 2010 year with a whopping 30% increase in profits for the second quarter of 2010, ended November 30, 2009. The publisher reported in December that it had a nearly 100% increase in higher margin educational technology sales, and margin benefits resulting from targeted price increases and company-wide cost reductions.
CrainsNewYork.com, which provides monthly updates on the number of jobs lost in New York City since the peak of August 2008, shows that as of December 22, 2009, 139,827 jobs have been lost, and only 10,700 jobs were gained in the private sector in November. The jobs meter draws on Eastern Consolidated's seasonally adjusted analysis of New York Department of Labor monthly statistics.
NEW YORK, NY/AUTHORLINK NEWS/01/07/10--Digital piracy is spreading to the book world, according to a New Year's Day article at CNN. Dan Brown's new blockbuster, THE LOST SYMBOL reportedly was pirated 100,000 times within days of its release and appeared on file-sharing sites such as Rapidshare and BitTorrent.
NEW YORK, NY/01/05/10--Scott Lubeck, most recently Vice President of Technology for Wolters Kluwer Health, Professional and Education, has been appointed Executive Director of the Book Industry Study Group, Inc. (BISG), and will preside over the January 21, 2010 BISG Board of Directors Meeting.
Published Thursday, January 7, 2010 (for the sales week ended Sunday, January 3, 2010). Based on reporting from many hundreds of independent bookstores across the United States. For information on more titles, please visit www.IndieBound.org
WASHINGTON, DC/AUTHORLINK NEWS/12/16/09--Several major publishers save signed up at Scribd to sell their e-books in the Scribd Store, according to The Washington Post. John Wiley & Sons, Chronicle Books, the University of Chicago Press and Sterling Publishing (owned by Barnes & Noble) have signed up for the service, which lets them offer downloadable books for sale in PDF format, and to display excerpts which can be embedded or shared through the Scribd Flash Viewer.
NEW YORK, NY/AUTHORLINK NEWS/12/17/09—Several major publishers, including Simon & Schuster and Hachette, are delaying e-book releases of their book titles to combat price slashing of bestsellers by retailers such as Amazon, Wal-Mart and Target, The Wall Street Journal reported this past week.
MOUNTAINVIEW, CA/DALLAS/AUTHORLINK NEWS/12/16/09--Google has posted amendments on its website for the Book Search Settlement case after a U.S. District Court granted preliminary approval of the case on November 19, 2009. The class action agreement affects virtually every author and publisher both in the US and abroad, so all who may be affected are strongly urged to read the Supplemental Notice, available at http://www.googlebooksettlement.com/Supplemental-Notice.pdf
HOLLYWOOD, CA/AUTHORLINK NEWS/12/16/09--Al Pacino has purchased movie rights to Philip Roth's The Humbling, about a washed up, aging stage actor who finds hope and renewal through a younger woman, according to The New York Times. It is the first time Mr. Pacino, who will play the lead role, has ever optioned a book.
NEW YORK, NY/AUTHORLINK NEWS/12/14/09--The Book Industry Study Group, Inc. (BISG) has released Digital Book Printing For DummiesR, a special edition For DummiesR resource for anyone wondering whether or not digital book printing is right for their business.
Published Thursday, December 17, 2009 (for the sales week ended Sunday, December 13, 2009). Based on reporting from many hundreds of independent bookstores across the United States. For information on more titles, please visit www.IndieBound.org
TORONTO, ON/AUTHORLINK NEWS/December 18, 2009— On the success of its millionth download, Shortcovers this week announced it has raised $16 million CAD from a group of investors which includes Borders Group., Inc, majority shareholder Indigo Books & Music, Inc., Instant Fame, a subsidiary of Cheung Kong (Holdings) Ltd., and REDgroup Retail Pty Ltd.
NEW YORK, NY/AUTHORLINK NEWS/December 17, 2009--Several interesting (and a few surprising) insights have come from a year-end Consumer Book Trends 2009 report, compiled by Bowker PubTrack and just released this week by the Association of American Publishers. Most important, the report points up that knowing your customers is essential to publishers.
NEW YORK, NY/AUTHORLINK NEWS/December 10, 2009)--The 2010 New York Book Festival has issued a call for entries to its annual celebration of books worthy of further recognition from the world's publishing capital. The event will be held June 10-12, 2010 in Manhattan.
SANTA BARBARA, CA/AUTHORLINK NEWS/December 10, 2009--Marcia Meier, the longtime owner and director of Santa Barbara Writers Conference (SBWC) is stepping down from her post at the end of December, and has put the event up for sale. In her newsletter announcement of the change, Meier said she hopes to announce the new owner and director within a few weeks.
NEW YORK, NY/AUTHORLINK NEWS/December 9, 2009—Despite Harlequin Publisher Donna Hayes’ letter to the Mystery Writers of America, the MWA voted unanimously to remove all Harlequin imprints from its list of approved publishers, effective immediately.
CHICAGO, IL/AUTHORLINK NEWS/December 9, 2009--The American Library Association, the Association of Research Libraries, and ALA’s Association of College and Research Libraries have challenged Google’s proposed settlement for its Book Search project with a guide describing the major flaws and concerns, particularly those relevant to libraries.
SEATTLE, NEW YORK/AUTHORLINK NEWS/ December 9, 2009--Amazon.com and Penguin Group (USA) today announced the third annual Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. The international competition seeks the next popular novel, and for the first time will award two grand prizes: one for general fiction and one for best young adult novel. The 2010 competition will also now be open to novels that have been previously self-published. Writers around the world are encouraged to begin preparing their manuscripts for entry into the competition, which is scheduled to launch on Jan. 25, 2010.
DALLAS, TX/AUTHORLINK NEWS/DECEMBER 9, 2009--Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization that produces Sesame Street, yesterday announced the launch of its first eBook collection for its millions of young readers as it celebrates its 40th anniversary.
Published Thursday, December 10, 2009 (for the sales week ended Sunday, December 6, 2009). Based on reporting from many hundreds of independent bookstores across the United States. For information on more titles, please visit www.IndieBound.org
NEW YORK, NY/AUTHORLINK NEWS/12/01/09--Black Friday (November 27) sales increased only slightly and shoppers stuck to shopping lists and bought many heavily discounted items, according to initial sales data. In addition, more consumers bought online, accelerating the trend of the past few years. Electronics remained the most popular category, including the Amazon Kindle which reported record sales in November. Cyber Monday was expected to be busier than last year.
SEATTLE,WA/AUTHORLINK NEWS/12/01/09--Amazon.com announced Monday that November is already the best sales month ever for Kindle, even before Cyber Monday. However, the company is still mum on actual sales figures.
UNITED KINGDOM/AUTHORLINK NEWS/12/02/09--Borders UK this past weekend launched a going-out-of-business sale at all 36 Borders and nine Books Etc. stores, according to the Bookseller.
Published Thursday, December 3, 2009 (for the sales week ended Sunday, November 29, 2009). Based on reporting from many hundreds of independent bookstores across the United States. For information on more titles, please visit www.IndieBound.org
Amazon is merging its print-on-demand division, BookSurge, into its self-publishing tools site, CreateSpace, where authors upload and sell their books, DVDs, CDs, MP3 recordings or videos via Amazon.com. When the transition is complete after the next few months, the BookSurge name will go away and CreateSpace will become a single platform for authors and publishers.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (Authorlink News, Nov. 239, 2009)—Borders Group, Inc. last week appointed Bill Dandy Senior Vice President, Marketing, effective immediately. Dandy has more than 20 years of retail experience, serving in marketing and operations leadership roles for several multi-billion-dollar retail organizations.
TORONTO (AUTHORLINK NEWS, November 23, 2009)--Harlequin, the world’s leading publisher of romance novels, has raised a firestorm over the launch of its new self-publishing imprint, Harlequin Horizons, in conjunction with Author Solutions, Inc. (ASI), the world’s leading self-publisher. Aspiring authors can now pay $599 to have their work published under the imprint.
NEW YORK, NY (AUTHORLINK NEWS, November 23,2009)--News Corp. (which also owns HarperCollins Publishers ) and Microsoft Corp. are in early discussions about a partnership that could see News Corp. removing its newspaper content from Google Inc.'s search engine while continuing to feature it on Microsoft's online properties, according to The Wall Street Journal (also owned by News Corp.)
This year’s finest authors were honored November 18 at The 60th National Book Awards Ceremony in New York’s Cipriani Wall Street. The winners were chosen from 236 nominees in the fiction category, 481 nominees in nonfiction, 161 nominees in poetry, and 251 hopefuls in young people’s literature. In 2009, 193 publishers submitted 1,129 books for the award.
NEW YORK, NY (AUTHORLINK NEWS, November 24, 2009)--The Booksellers Association of the United Kingdom & Ireland (BA) last week said it will launch an IndieBound marketing campaign for members of its Independent Booksellers Forum in early 2010, and will extend the program into the UK.
NEW YORK, NY (AUTHORLINK NEWS, November 23, 2009)--A final hearing in the Google settlement has been set February 18 by Judge Denny Chin. At that time, Chin will hear arguments to determine whether the agreement is “fair, reasonable, adequate.” Chin has already given tentative approval in the case, but will make a final ruling in February.
