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Hachette Book Group is reportedly in talks to acquire the Perseus Books Group.
The New York Times has the scoop: “Under terms of the proposed deal, Hachette would keep the Perseus publishing business, said one person briefed on the negotiations. But it has signed a binding agreement to sell its client services division, which provides back-end services like marketing and distribution, to Ingram Content Group, a distributor.”
The deal would give Hachette a leg up in its battle with Amazon. For the last month, the publisher has been stuck in negotiations with the book retailer. Amazon has stopped stocking popular Hachette titles, delaying shipments for weeks. Hachette author Stephen Colbert has launched an anti-Amazon campaign in response.
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Many members of the literary community have been greatly concerned about the Amazon vs. Hachette dispute. Renowned writer Neil Gaiman sat for an interview with Salon and voiced his opinion on this hotly-debated subject.
Gaiman revealed that he has many reasons to feel anger towards Amazon, but he is also trying to keep in mind "that what you’re seeing right now, is huge, giant-level dealings between huge corporations both under non-disclosure, and every time I try to actually read enough stuff to figure out what’s going on here, what I run into is lots of 'We can’t say anything, but he says,' and 'We can’t say anything, but she says.'"
Like The Fault in Our Stars author John Green, Gaiman loves bookstores and wishes "to see is more and more healthy, independent bookshops." Where do you stand on this? What do you think the future holds for the relationship between publishers and Amazon?
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By: Alice,
on 6/7/2014
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As the Amazon-Hachette debate has escalated this week, taking a notably funny turn on the Colbert Report, we’d like to share some funnier reflections on books and the purposes they serve. Here are a few selections from the Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations, Fifth Edition.
“Book–what they make a movie out of for television”
–Leonard Louis Levinson 1904-74: Laurence J. Peter (ed) Quotations for our Time (1977)
“If you don’t find it in the Index, look very carefully through the entire catalogue.”
–Anonymous: in Consumer’s Guide, Sears, Roebuck and Co. (1897); Donald E. Knuth Sorting and Searching (1973)
“Books and harlots have their quarrels in public.”
–Walter Benjamin 1892-1940 German philosopher and critic: One Way Street (1928)
“My desire is … that mine adversary had written a book.”
–Bible: Job
“The covers of this book are too far apart.”
–Ambrose Bierce 1842-c.1914 American writer; C.H. Grattam Bitter Bierce (1929)
“When the [Supreme] Court moved to Washington in 1800, it was provided with no books, which probably explains the high quality of early opinions.”
–Robert H. Jackson 1892-1954 American lawyer: The Supreme Court in the American System of Government (1955)
“One man is as good as another until he has written a book.”
–Benjamin Jowett 1817-93 English classicist: Evelyn Abbott and Lewis Campbell (eds.) Life and Letters of Benjamin Jowett (1897)
“This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”
–Dorothy Parker 1893-1967 American critic and humorist: R.E. Drennan Wit’s End (1973)
“A thick, old-fashioned heavy book with a clasp is the finest thing in the world to throw at a noisy cat.”
–Mark Twain 1835-1910 American writer: Alex Ayres The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain (1987)
“An index is a great leveller.”
–George Bernard Shaw 1856-1950 Irish dramatist: G.N. Knight Indexing (1979); attributed, perhaps apocryphal
“Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine;–they are the life, the soul of reading;–take them out of this book for instance,–you might as well take the book along with them.”
–Laurence Sterne 1713-68 English novelist: Tristram Shandy (1759-67)
“In every first novel the hero is the author as Christ or Faust.”
–Oscar Wilde 1854-1900 Irish dramatist and poet: attributed
Writer, broadcaster, and wit Gyles Brandreth has completely revised Ned Sherrin’s classic collection of wisecracks, one-liners, and anecdotes. With over 1,000 new quotations throughout the media, it’s easy to find hilarious quotes on subjects ranging from Argument to Diets, from Computers to the Weather. Add sparkle to your speeches and presentations, or just enjoy a good laugh in the company of Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, Joan Rivers, Kathy Lette, Frankie Boyle, and friends. Gyles Brandreth is a high profile comedian, writer, reporter on The One Show and keen participant in radio and TV quiz shows.
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Image credit: Bookcase. Public domain via Pixababy.
The post What is a book? (humour edition) appeared first on OUPblog.
Many members of the literary community have voiced their opinion about the Amazon vs. Hachette dispute.
According to The Associated Press, John Green spoke out against the online retail giant during a promotional event for The Fault in Our Stars movie. He feels that "what's ultimately at stake is whether Amazon is going to be able to freely and permanently bully publishers into eventual nonexistence."
continued...
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If you want to preorder a copy of Robert Galbraith aka J.K. Rowling's new novel The Silkworm (Cormoran Strike Series #2), you can't do so on Amazon. The book, which comes out on June 19th, is currently listed as unavailable on Amazon. Barnes & Noble, among other book retailers, has the book available for presale.
Earlier this month, Amazon was slow to ship Hachette titles. Now things are escalating.
"We are doing everything in our power to find a solution to this difficult situation, one that best serves our authors and their work, and that preserves our ability to survive and thrive as a strong and author-centric publishing company," explained Hachette in a statement.
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Hachette Livre reported approximately $539M in revenues during Q1 2014, down 5.3 percent from the first quarter in 2013. The publishing company attributed the drop to excessive sales from the Fifty Shades trilogy in France during the first quarter of 2013, and revealed that sales were in Q1 2014 were stable with Q1 2012.
Despite coming in slightly under budget, Hachette Book Group reported that it "had a solid first quarter, with revenues slightly below budget but gross profit ahead of budget." During the quarter the publisher had 70 titles on The New York Times bestseller list in print and 28 titles on The New York Times eBook list.
Ebook sales during Q1 2014 represented 13.4 percent of sales for Hachette Livre, up from 12.4 percent in Q1 2013. In the US, eBooks represent 34 percent of Hachette's net trade sales, the same as last year. In the UK, eBook sales made up 40 percent of net Adult trade sales for the publisher, up from 31 percent in Q1 2013.
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Hachette has claimed that Amazon is slowing delivery on some of its bestselling titles as part of a negotiation tactic, as the two work out the latest terms of their partnership.
Everybody's Got Something by Robin Roberts; American Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren't by Stephen Colbert; The Closer by Mariano Rivera and Wayne Coffey are among bestselling print titles that estimate 2-5 week ship dates on Amazon. The same titles ship from Barnes and Noble within 24 hours.
The New York Times broke the story last week. Here is more from the story:
"We have been asked legitimate questions about why many of our books are at present marked out of stock with relatively long estimated shipping times on the Amazon website, in contrast to immediate availability on other websites and in stores,” said Sophie Cottrell, a Hachette spokeswoman. “We are satisfying all Amazon’s orders promptly.”
But, she added, “Amazon is holding minimal stock” and restocking some of Hachette’s books “slowly, causing ‘available 2-4 weeks’ messages.”
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Digital sales were up 33 percent at Hachette Book Group in 2013. Digital sales now represent 30 percent of the company’s overall business.
Overall, the company saw a 6 percent increase in revenues in 2013, coming off of a difficult year in 2012. In 2013, the company broke its own bestsellers record with 206 print and 84 eBook titles on the New York Times bestseller list, including 52 No. 1 bestsellers.
HBG’s releases for the year included: The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith, aka J.K. Rowling; The Longest Ride by Nicholas Sparks; Alex Cross, Run by James Patterson and David Ellis;David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell; The Hit by David Baldacci; and The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.
The publisher also announced that Mauro DiPreta will join the company, serving as Vice President and Publisher of Hachette Books, a new publishing division that launches this year. The new imprint will be built on Hyperion’s backlist which HBG acquired in 2013. The division will also publish new titles.
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Authors Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl will reunite as collaborators on a new young adult series.
The new Dangerous Creatures series stars Link and Ridley, two characters who were originally introduced in the Beautiful Creatures series.
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers will launch the series on December 17, 2013 with the publication of a digital novella titled Dangerous Dream. The project will bridge the two series.
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In a recent earnings report, one major publisher noted rising eBook sales are diminishing net sales.
AppNewser has more details:
The Hachette Book Group reported today that the company’s net sales for the fourth quarter 2012 were down 5.7 percent. The company’s net sales dropped 3.4 percent for the entire year of 2012. The increase in eBook sales drove net sales down, as eBooks bring in less revenue, the company explained in a press release. Despite the drop in net sales, volume sales were up 1.2 percent for the year. HBG’s net sales from eBooks and audio products totaled 26 percent of overall revenue in 2012, up from 23 percent in 2011. The publisher also had seventy-one titles reach the New York Times eBook bestseller chart last year.
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By: Jason Boog,
on 2/7/2013
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Reagan Arthur, the editorial director of Little, Brown’s Reagan Arthur Books imprint, will be the next publisher and senior VP of Little, Brown. She will assume her new role on April 1st as Michael Pietsch becomes the new CEO of Hachette Book Group.
The release included this news: “In stepping into the role of Publisher, Arthur will retire the Reagan Arthur Books imprint she has led for three years.”
Arthur has worked at Little, Brown since 2001, earning her own imprint in 2008. She has edited Tina Fey, Joshua Ferris, Kate Atkinson, George Pelecanos and Ian Rankin.
continued…
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Hachette Book Group, Penguin and Simon & Schuster have launched Bookish, nearly two years after the site was first announced in May 2011.
The site will recommend books and let readers shop for books. It also shares book excerpts and features essays from its editors and authors (we’ve included some excerpts below).
According to Digital Book World sources, the publishers have invested “about $16 million” in the new venture. Bookish also counted the participation of 16 other major publishers, including Random House, Inc., Scholastic, HarperCollins Publishers and Perseus Books Group.
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By: Maryann Yin,
on 12/13/2012
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A number of publishing professionals at Hachette’s Little, Brown & Company imprint were promoted this week.
Within the marketing/publicity department, four staff members have received promotions. Heather Fain has been named vice president, associate publisher and marketing director. Nicole Dewey has will now serve as vice president and executive director of publicity.
Sabrina Callahan‘s new title is now director of publicity for James Patterson. Theresa Giacopasi has moved up to online publicity manager.
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The Hachette Book Group has restructured its sales force, bringing the print and digital sales teams together and integrating research and analytics into the company’s overall strategy.
The company said that the changes will not include layoffs, but they added new departments and made a number of promotions. Chris Murphy has been promoted to senior vice president of the newly formed retail sales department. HBG has also hired David Bowers away from Oxford University Press to serve as SVP of sales strategy and operations, another newly formed department.
Additional promotions include Rick Cobban, who has been named vice president of national accounts. Mike Heuer will be promoted to executive director of the National Field Force, and will lead the ID and field sales teams. Karen Torres has been promoted to VP account marketing and retail operations.
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The American Library Association’s president Maureen Sullivan was “stunned” when news broke that Hachette may dramatically increase the price of eBooks for libraries.
Sullivan issued a strong statement following reports that Hachette is raising the prices on its backlist eBooks by 220 percent. If the reports are true, 3,500 eBook titles with release dates of April 2010 and earlier will experience these price hikes.
American Libraries Magazine has Sullivan’s complete statement. Here is an excerpt: “Libraries must have the ability to purchase a wide range of digital content at a fair price so that all readers have full access to our world’s creative and cultural resources, especially the many millions who depend on libraries as their only source of reading material.”
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By: Jason Boog,
on 9/11/2012
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Three publishers will drop the agency model that kept eBook prices the same across all marketplaces, and the eBook price wars have already commenced. PaidContent confirmed yesterday that HarperCollins prices have already started to change.
Last week, a federal judge approved a settlement between between Hachette Book Group, Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins and the Department of Justice. Soon eBook marketplaces can sell some digital books at a discount, reigniting the eBook price wars.
Prices on Hachette and Simon & Schuster digital books still contain the “This price was set by the publisher” tag on Amazon, but their price restrictions will also be lifted as part of the agreement. In the meantime, we took a look at the most expensive books from these publishers–a way to track the changes in agency model books.
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The Hachette Book Group reported that its sales dropped four percent during the first half of 2012 in a financial earnings statement released August 30th. Meanwhile, Hachette’s digital sales increased 20 percent in the first half of 2012, as compared with the first half of 2011. The company reported that digital represents 27 percent of HBG’s net sales, which is up from 22 percent of net sales last year.
The company expects higher sales in the second half of the year, due to the typical growth in holiday season sales. In addition, the company expects J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy to help bolster sales.
Lagardère Publishing’s Hachette Livre reported net sales of around $1.1 billion during the first six months of 2012. Digital is growing within the division, representing 8.4 percent of total net sales for Hachette Livre, which is up from 6 percent for all of 2011. (Via Digital Book World).
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55 attorney generals from different states, districts and U.S. territories have reached an agreement with HarperCollins, Hachette and Simon & Schuster in the ongoing litigation over eBook pricing.
According to the terms of the deal, consumers who bought an eBook from any of the “Agency Five” publishers during April 1, 2010 until May 21, 2012 will receive compensation.
Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster will pay consumers who purchased eBooks from any of the five agencies accused of price fixing, including Macmillan and Penguin, who have yet to settle. Payments will begin 30 days after the settlement gets its final court approval.
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Following his middle grade debut, Glee actor Chris Colfer will be publishing a young-adult novel called Struck by Lightning: The Carson Phillips Journal. Little, Brown Books for Young Readers will release this title in the US on November 20th.
Struck by Lightning was based on a screenplay Colfer (pictured, via) wrote. PerezHilton.com reports that the film, which stars Colfer in the role of Carson Phillips, features a “coming-of-age comedy” storyline. The movie will be hitting theaters later this year after the book release. Follow this link to view the official movie trailer.
Colfer had this statement in the release: “When production wrapped on Struck By Lightning, I wasn’t ready to say good-bye to these characters and was thrilled when Little, Brown asked me to adapt the story into a novel. I felt the best way to tell Carson’s story was through his critical eyes in a journal he kept the last months of his life. So this is a story about adolescence, told through the eyes of a teenager, for other teenagers.”
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Once again, I collected (almost) all of the Free Comic Book Day offerings, and offer my reviews on what’s good, what’s great, and what should have been better!
Titles are arranged alphabetically by publisher, and the images and summaries come from the offical FCBD website. My comments are in purple.
What did you grab? What did you enjoy?
Kid Friendly Titles
___________________________________________________________________________
Publisher: ANTARCTIC PRESS
(W/A) David Hutchinson, Fred Perry (CA) David Hutchinson
(W/A) David Hutchinson, Fred Perry
(CA) David Hutchinson
All 6th-grader Bill Stokes wants is to get through middle school unnoticed so he can go on to become a big-time pro video-gamer. Then his mom comes home from her medical research volunteer job with a zombie virus. Now Bill has to deal with skin problems and body chemistry changes that make puberty look like a walk in the park! How’s he supposed to realize his dream when his life has become a festering, rotting, undead nightmare?
I read the first four pages… it doesn’t appeal to me. It’s kind of interesting…his mother is a zombie, he’s sort of a zombie (he’s still got his human reasoning). But this is just another variant in the “kid’s diary” genre, with spot illustrations, which are pretty good for a zombie kid!
___________________________________________________________________________
Publisher: ARCHAIA ENTERTAINMENT LLC
(W/A) Jeremy Bastian & Various (CA) David Peterson
(W) Jeremy Bastian, Nate Cosby, Royden Lepp, Jim McCann, Ted Naifeh, David Petersen (A) Jeremy Bastian, Chris Eliopoulos, Cory Godbey, Janet Lee, Royden Lepp and David Petersen
(C) David Petersen
This Free Comic Book Day, Archaia offers readers the chance to experience history in the making with a FREE, gorgeous, 48-page, 6″ x 9″ full-color original anthology hardcover featuring all-new material! David Petersen returns with an all-new Mouse Guard tale that’s guaranteed to tug at your heartstrings! Lose yourself once again in Jim Henson’s amazing world of Labyrinth, featuring a fantastical story from Eisner Award-nominee Ted Naifeh (Courtney Crumrin) and Cory Godbey (Fraggle Rock). Get a new perspective on Jet Jones in Royden Lepp’s
Multiple reports have surfaced that the Department of Justice has sued Apple and publishers for allegedly colluding to set eBook prices. We will update as the story evolves this morning.
Bloomberg had the first complete report: “The U.S. filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple Corp., Hachette SA, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin and Simon & Schuster in New York district court, claiming collusion over eBook pricing.”
The Wall Street Journal added: “A settlement involving some of the publishers is expected to be filed Wednesday, according to a person familiar with the matter.” Digital Book World has a letter from Macmillan CEO John Sargent:”Other publishers have chosen to settle. That is their decision to make. We have decided to fight this in court.”
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Multiple reports have surfaced that the Department of Justice has sued Apple and publishers for allegedly colluding to set eBook prices. We will update as the story evolves this morning.
Bloomberg had the first complete report: “The U.S. filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple Corp., Hachette SA, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin and Simon & Schuster in New York district court, claiming collusion over eBook pricing.”
The Wall Street Journal added: “A settlement involving some of the publishers is expected to be filed Wednesday, according to a person familiar with the matter.” Macmillan CEO John Sargent wrote a public letter about the case. Read the whole letter here: “Other publishers have chosen to settle. That is their decision to make. We have decided to fight this in court.”
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Publishing industry veteran Evan Schnittman has been appointed executive vice president, chief marketing and sales officer at Hachette Book Group.
In this newly created position, Schnittman will head up sales and marketing across the company. Schnittman comes to HBG from Bloomsbury Publishing, where he served as managing director, group sales and marketing, print & digital.
Schnittman released the following statement: “I am extremely honored and excited to be given the opportunity to further integrate print and digital sales and marketing at Hachette Book Group. I will be coming home full-time to New York and returning to two publishers close to my heart, Little, Brown and Grand Central Publishing (Warner Books when I was there)…”
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Naomi Cartwright has always loved stories (although she’s often tempted to read endings first). It was no surprise to her family that she did an English Studies degree at the University of Nottingham before moving to London to work in Children’s Publishing. Naomi is now a Senior Rights Executive at Hachette Children’s Books and has previously worked at Puffin and Orion. She also writes short
Veteran soldier Kevin Powers has inked a deal with Little, Brown and Company for his Iraq war novel The Yellow Birds.
Powers, who has served in the Iraq war, is currently working towards an MFA as a Michener Fellow in Poetry at the University of Texas at Austin. Powers’ manuscript was acquired by publisher Michael Pietsch.
Pietsch had this statement in the release: “Ever since reading Ernest Hemingway’s In Our Time I have been gripped by novelists’ accounts of the experience of war. And as soon as I began reading The Yellow Birds I knew I was in the presence of a masterful rendering of the particular horrors of this particular war. From the first word of this novel to the last, Kevin Powers’s portrayal of young soldiers trying to stay alive—and of the effect of the war on their families at home—is profound, unsettling, and sadly beautiful.”
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Yo Gabba Gabba AND Mike Allred together at the same time? Oh wow!
The Guild is a show on YouTube and Dark Horse occasionally releases comics based on it written by Felicia Day and drawn by one of the greatest comic artists alive, Jim Rugg.
I badly want the KaBoom book with the Adventure Time story.
I’m really jealous people live in places where they can get these books. I’ve never had such an opportunity.
Sources at Diamond tell me that stores can order FCBD titles by the PIECE. Given the lead time in announcing the titles, one could conceivably preorder a complete set of comics very cheaply. (25 cents a copy?)
Of course, this is a slippery slope… some stores might start selling complete sets on eBay.
Thanks for this! I didn’t get a chance to read all the ones I wanted, like the 2000AD one, so this was helpful. I took my friend and baby cousin to Graham Crackers Comics in Chicago, and everyone got a copy of The New 52 freeborn with a special cover that allowed 3free Comics from select boxes… in the future! I think it was a good way to get pepper in the door and KEEP them coming.
The Pedestrian Palm was probably the best five pages I read on the FCBD. “Sell-outs assemble!” So awesome!
In hindsight, I should have grabbed that Mouse Guard HC but this was a great opportunity to pick up some kid-friendly books for my students.
Marvel’s Season One hardcovers are coming out approximately bimonthly. Fantastic Four, Daredevil, and X-Men were all on my retailer’s shelf yesterday.
“The Rock of Eternity and what may be the seven letters of Shazam! ”
Shazam has only 6 letters, unless the exclamation counts. But there are 7 deadly sin (and possibly there opposite?)
Love “The Guild” and pretty much everything Felicia Day touches. She first caught my attention in “Dr. Horrible.” I am surprised to see that you were unaware of the web series. Day has a new channel on YouTube — http://www.youtube.com/user/geekandsundry — where you can see “The Guild” and other projects.
My local stores had very few FCBs left by the time I came by, but the Bongo comic caught my eye. I flipped through it and left it there.
Mostly it was a day of saying hello to the managers, and browsing the sales they offered on ‘already read’ copies of GNs.
One shop had 20 people in line at the cash at 2pm, the next shop had ‘zip’.
Torsten: The Guild is a webseries written, produced and starring Felicia Day from Dr. Horrible and Eureka (and last week’s episode of Supernatural). There have been five seasons — each equivalent in combined time to one episode of a TV series. They have aired via Xbox, MSN and a couple other places I forget and each season but are also available on DVD, which is how I got it. The first season is *very* rough — hey, nobody else had really done a webseries to this extent back then — but the DVD I got had both season 1 and season 2, so I can tell you that it grows in quality.
The Guild is an hilarious look at a group of players of an unnamed World-of-Warcraft-like game. Very droll comedy that should appeal to the geekiest, nerdiest fans of The Big Bang Theory and Community.
So far, Dark Horse has published eight comics, a 3-issue miniseries, siumply called “The Guild,” written by Felicia Day and centering around her character, Codex. (All of the characters are referred to by the names of their in-game characters.) And five more one-shots each co-written by Day each charater’s corresponding actor: Vork, Bladezz, Clara, Tink and Zaboo. The miniseries has already been collected into a TPB and I expect that a TPB of the one-shots will be published before the end of the year.
You don’t need to have seen the webseries to appreciate the comics. They’re mostly backstory. Hilarious backstory, especially the absolutely insane Zaboo tale illustrated by Backy Cloonan. I’ve never been a gamer, but this was one of those circumstances where I was hooked by the sample pages of the first issue of the miniseries that ran in Previews.
Hope that helps! The series is a blast!
Something curious I’m noticing about FCBD comics, as each year goes by. I could swear when it first began most of the books were full done-in-one stories. Now many of them appear to be nothing more than glorified teaser previews. I’m not sure that’s the best way to get people to read comics. I mean, I get it, but still. My boyfriend came to his very first FCBD, and he was disappointed to learn most of the books weren’t full stories, but rather teasers of things he was going to have to buy down the line…
Doh! Forgot about the 2000 AD one, oh well, my store didn’t have it. Love Atomic Robo’s free comic book day…love Doctor Dinosaur.
Interesting comment about the teasers…
Most of these comics did have at least one complete story, even if the rest of the comic was teaser/ads.
Bongo, Dark Horse (both), Boom (all three), Valiant (half), Donald Duck, My Favorite Martian, Archie (both), 2000 AD, Avengers, DC Nation (half), Atomic Robo, Yo Gabba Gabba…
My store limited subscribers to two comics so I picked up the Bongo and the Kaboom issues.
I really liked the Adventure Time story in the Kaboom issue. Oddly it was paired with a Peanuts story, which I understand was a limited series and now finished? Should have paired it with Snarked, another excellent Kaboom title.
The Peanuts content was already available as a #0 issue last November. They should have paired it with the new Garfield series using cover #1B!