News & Trends: Fast Stats

$3.99

The retail price for the recently released 32-page comic book biography of Stephen King, "Orbit: Stephen King," published by Bluewater Productions, an 
indie production studio for comic books, young adult books and graphic novels. The book, which follows King's career from a struggling writer to prolific best-selling author, will be sold in comic shops and online retailers, as well as at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

Source: Bluewater Productions

250,000

The number of books Google plans to make available through a partnership with The British Library to digitize and offer for free out-of-copyright books, pamphlets and periodicals, dated 1700 to 1870, from the library's collection. It will focus on books that are not yet freely available in digital form online.

The books will be delivered through Google Books (Books.google.co.uk) and the British Library's website (BL.uk). Google will cover digitization costs. To date, Google has partnered with 40-plus libraries worldwide.

Source: The British Library

$8 Million

The amount of Series B equity financing secured by Open Road Integrated Media Inc., the digital publisher and multimedia content company launched in 2009 by former HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman. This post-startup round of financing was led by Azure Capital, and includes Golden Seeds and current investor Kohlberg Ventures. According to a press release, Open Road will use the financing to expand its digital publishing and marketing program. Kathryn Swintek, Golden Seeds managing director, said, "Open Road's strong performance … caught the attention of … Golden Seeds members who seek out high growth, disruptive businesses."

Source: Open Road Integrated Media Inc.