Penguins Severs Ties with OverDrive – Publisher’s Weekly – Calvin Reid
Penguin, which only offered backlist e-book titles for library lending, is terminating its contract with OverDrive, the library digital vendor, and starting February 10 will cease to offer any of its e-books or audiobooks to libraries. Penguin is negotiating a “continuance” agreement that will allow libraries that have already purchased Penguin e-books to continue to loan them.
Amazon and Kindle users are effected as well.
ABA Says “No” to Amazon Publishing – Publisher’s Weekly – Judith Rosen
The American Booksellers Association is the latest to weigh in on Amazon’s publishing program following the decision by Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, and Indigo Books not to carry their titles. Today the organization’s for-profit subsidiary, IndieCommerce, began removing all Amazon titles from its database.
A commenter made a very good point: by isolating Amazon, Amazon could become even more of a powerhouse. And yet, if booksellers embrace Amazon, Amazon could become even more of a powerhouse. Oh, dear.
Fair Trade: Random House Will Raise Library E-book Prices, But Commits to E-Book Lending – Publisher’s Weekly – Andrew Albanese
Never has a price increase been such good news for libraries. At a meeting with ALA leaders this week in New York, Random House officials said the “terms of sale” for Random House e-books to libraries will change, with a price increase coming. But the publisher reiterated its commitment to library e-book lending, saying they would continue to enable e-book lending of their entire list for both adult and children’s titles, backlist and frontlist, without restriction.
Definitely a fair trade. Continuing on from the article, RH is trying to have all parties benefit: the authors, the readers, the libraries, the publishers. Seems like a good deal for such a touchy subject.
BAM Picks CoverCake to Track Social Media Book Data – Publisher’s Weekly – Calvin Reid
Books-A-Million is teaming up with CoverCake, a startup venture focused on title discovery and analytics that can track book trends and overall online interest in titles and publishers across multiple social media platforms. CoverCake will be used by BAM in its internal and external systems to enhance its merchandising and shopping experience.
…
Costello said that using CoverCake, publishers and marketers can track individual titles and get specific data on how many people are posting about a specific title on Twitter, say, on any other social media site. Users can track the online discussion around genres—biography, fiction, travel, romance and so on—the gender of readers for a specific title or specific publishers and authors.
Lee & Low Acquires Children’s Book Press – Publisher’s Weekly – Wendy Werris
Children’s Book Press, founded in 1975 by Harriet Rohmer for the specific purpose of creating a line of bilingual and multicultural books, ceased operations at the end of September and has sold its backlist inventory of 90 titles to Lee & Low Books in New York.
Dana Goldberg, former executive editor for Children’s Book Press, attributes the demise of the press to “a perfect storm of systemic things. We were a niche publisher for the institutional market, and 80 percent of our business came from schools and libraries. With the nationwide budget cuts, the last two years were really tough.” Goldberg also points to the challenge inherent in running a nonprofit publishing company. “We didn’t have to rely solely on book sales because of the fundraising side of the business, but in recent years our fundraising efforts didn’t meet expectations.” Children’s Book Press was distributed by Publishers Group West.
Children’s Books Get 21 Oscar Nominations – Publisher’s Weekly – Liz Hartman
Hugo, based on The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, leads the pack with the most – 11– nominations, including Best Picture. War Horse, based on Michael Murpurgo’s 1982 novel, is not far behind, with six nominations (also including Best Picture). Both books were published by Scholastic. Only The Artist garnered more nominations than War Horse, with 10, while Moneyball is tied with it at six.
In addition to the Best Picture category, Hugo and War Horse will compete head to hoof for awards in Art Direction, Cinematography, Music (Original Score), Sound Editing, and Sound Mixing. Hugo also nabbed nominations for Costume Design, Visual Effects, and Writing (adapted screenplay).
The Adventures of Tin Tin and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 also received nods, as many of you may already know, but none in categories most people pay attention to, such as Best Actor/Actress, Best Picture, Best Director, etc. Even still, it’s extremely exciting to see how well books-turned-movies are doing. I like to think of it as proof that books are especially valued for their stories. PW ends on a hopeful note: that since books-turned-movies are so big now, there should be an Oscar category for this as well. It’s in the Golden Globes, why not the Academy?
Indie Bookstores Growing—and On the Move – Publisher’s Weekly – Judith Rosen
Just weeks after the start of the new year change is afoot at a number of indie bookstores, including going permanent (Word Up pop-up community bookstore in Washington Heights in New York City), moving (Newtonville Books in Newtonville, Mass.), and expanding (Idlewild Books in New York City).
On the other end of the spectrum, communities are working to keep independent bookstores in place! Permanence, moving, and expanding are all great things to hear. Find out if you have an independent bookstore near you that you can help out!
Wary but Determined, Publishers are Preparing for the Digital Future – Publisher’s Weekly – Calvin Reid
While publishers may be a bit daunted, they are rapidly organizing their firms for digital: 75% of publishers have an executive level person responsible for digital; 63% report that digital skills are formally integrated into all departments; 69% of the publishers expect to increase digital staffing in 2012, while 22% expect overall company staffing to go down in 2012.
For the statistically inclined.
2012 Edgar Award Nominees Announced – Publisher’s Weekly
Mystery Writers of America has announced the nominees for the 2012 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction and nonfiction. The winners will be announced at a gala banquet on April 26 in New York.
Big news! There are roughly five nominees per category. Categories include:
…to name a few. Authors such as Diane Gabaldon, Maureen Johnson, and Neil Gaiman are nominated! Plenty of new names and faces as well. Check it out!
OverDrive Adds Foreign Language Titles – Publisher’s Weekly
Are you aware of that handy little app? It just got better.
Digital library distributor OverDrive has added “thousands” of foreign language titles to its catalog by signing a number of new publishing clients. The company’s online catalog has books in over 50 languages and the new titles include ones in Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Italian, and Turkish with Spanish titles coming. The addition of the foreign titles brings OverDrive e-book catalog to 700,000.
Scribbles & Wanderlust 