HarperCollins
February 20, 2014
The finalists for the 34th annual L.A. Times Book Prizes were announced Wednesday morning: 50 books in 10 categories are in the running to win the L.A. Times Book Prizes, to be awarded in April. Two authors will receive special recognition: John Green with the Innovators Award and Susan Straight with the Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement.
February 14, 2014
I have a certain pride of discovery in super-successful indie author Hugh Howey. It was nearly two years ago that I learned about him on a trip to LA to organize a conference that didn't happen. The Hollywood grapevine told me about his novel-of-assembled-novellas, Wool, which was a sudden major self-publishing bestseller and that he had a movie deal. I got in touch with him and his agent, Kristin Nelson, and learned that he was making $50,000 a month in royalties, and had a host of foreign deals as well as the movie deal.
February 13, 2014
Oyster, the New York-based startup that aims to be the Netflix for ebooks, has added about 100 titles from Disney Publishing to its service and is rolling out a new children's vertical Wednesday.
Oyster, which launched last September, charges $9.95 per month for unlimited access to a library of over 100,000 in-copyright ebooks and has iPhone and iPad apps. (The company hasn't publicly updated that 100,000 figure since launch.) Android apps are slated for later this year.
February 7, 2014
HarperCollins worldwide saw its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) rise by 33% to $68m (£42m) in its second quarter.
The publisher attributed the increase to a "higher contribution to profits" from e-book sales and "ongoing operational efficiencies coupled with higher revenues" in its second quarter to 31st December 2012. Revenue, by comparison, increased 4% to $391m. E-book sales continued to rise for the publisher in the last quarter before Christmas, increasing by 39% and accounting for 17% of total sales.
February 4, 2014
HarperCollins is this month launching its global publishing arm, HarperCollins 360. The new venture aims to publish in the UK HC titles that were previously only available abroad.
HarperCollins 360 selects and publishes English-language titles originally published in the US, New Zealand and Australia. It also aims to include Indian and Canadian titles in the next 18 months. The imprint has plans to launch 450 bestselling titles in the UK.
January 30, 2014
E-book subscription service Scribd is looking to take on Amazon from within. The company launched a new app for the Kindle Fire on Wednesday that will provide an alternative to Amazon's e-book market.
Scribd was originally started as a document sharing service but added a book subscription service in October, which featured an agreement with publisher HarperCollins.
The company has positioned itself alongside other digital subscription offerings like Netflix and Spotify, and is competing directly with another book subscription startup, Oyster.
January 29, 2014
News Corp.'s (NASDAQ:NWS) (NASDAQ:NWSA) HarperCollins, one of the world's largest publishing companies, recently requested that Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) remove search engine links to some of its own books on Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) iTunes in what appears to be a poorly executed attempt to fight online piracy, reports TorrentFreak. HarperCollins made the takedown requests through Digimarc (NASDAQ:DMRC), a company that provides anti-piracy protection for publishers and authors. As seen in the screenshot above, Digimarc's takedown requests included eight links to HarperCollins e-books offered through Apple's iTunes Store. The eight targeted books are all mystery novels written by Agatha Christie
January 27, 2014
Oyster has grown its library of books available to its all-you-can-eat subscribers to more than 100,000 titles. CEO Eric Stromberg told CNET how it happened, and how the company is changing the world of reading.
The world in which people have to rent movies one at a time from a video store, or buy individual songs from iTunes has come and gone. These days, Netflix, Spotify, Rdio, and other services are making it easier and easier for people to subscribe to all-you-can-eat plans.
January 24, 2014
Having worked at EMI records for over a decade, Chantal Restivo-Alessi knows what it's like to have the digitization of media cannibalize your industry. "I went through the digital revolution early on with music," the HarperCollins's Chief Digital Officer told Fast Company.
The music establishment made mistakes, she admits. "In the early days, it was a lot of resistance in participating in the new business models," she added.
January 17, 2014
On the surface, it looked like business as usual at this year's Digital Book World conference in New York City earlier this week, with no groundbreaking announcements, no radical plans hatched to transform the book business as we know it. But as always, when publishers convene to discuss the state of the industry, a few ideas emerge.
Teens Not Reading for Fun
Of the news repeated over-and-over again in private conversation, it was that a recent Nielsen Books survey revealed 41% of teenagers aged 13-17 said that they do not read books for fun.
