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What is our core value proposition? It's a business jargon-y type of question that the editor in me shudders to hear, but it stuck in my mind -- in a good way -- when I heard it asked this week at our Book Business Live event on March 31st. Clancy Marshall, VP of core systems at Pearson posed the question during the day's first panel which discussed transforming publishing companies in order to thrive in the digital era.
When I reported on the story on Tuesday, I knew little more than that the negotiations had hit a snag. The original BI article didn't include any direct quotes, just unnamed sources, but it was later updated to include this statement from Amazon:
I can't comment on that rumor. I can say that we have offered Harper the same terms for a contract that Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan have all recently agreed to.
I can also add that Publishers Lunch said that the contract negotiation had been going on for over a year.
The contract between "Big Five" book publisher HarperCollins and Amazon is about to expire, and HarperCollins is refusing to sign an agreement with the new terms that Amazon is asking, a source with knowledge of the situation tells Business Insider.
The contract presented to HarperCollins was the same contract recently signed by Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan, Amazon confirmed.
If HarperCollins and Amazon don't come to an agreement, no print or digital HarperCollins books will be available on Amazon once its existing contract runs out "very soon," our source says.
Social selling may be the new frontier for trade publishers. Today HarperCollins announced a partnership with Twitter to promote the film tie-in edition of Insurgent in conjunction with the movie's release. Twitter Commerce allows Insurgent fans to purchase the book with one click, direct from HarperCollins, without leaving the social media site. HarperCollins and Twitter will promote the campaign and send targeted offers to users who are tweeting about the new film.
As the date of the Book Business Live: Executive Summit on Digital Publishing draws closer, we are excited to confirm an impressive roster of speakers. Executives from Cengage, McGraw-Hill Education, The Perseus Books Group, Rodale Books, and more will join Book Business on March 31st at The Union League in New York City.
Ingram Content Group Inc., today announced the expansion of titles available to libraries and their patrons through its MyiLibrary® e-book platform, offered through Ingram's Coutts Information Services Inc., with the addition of a wide range of bestselling content from leading publishers.
News Corp (NWSA.O), owner of the Wall Street Journal and HarperCollins, reported quarterly revenue and a profit just above analysts' consensus forecast as its book publishing and real estate businesses offset dwindling print revenue.
Total revenue for the second quarter increased 2 percent to $2.28 billion, slightly ahead of the forecast of $2.25 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
News Corp's revenue is largely dependent on its newspaper holdings in the United States, Australia and Great Britain.
Recent years have brought publishers greater access to data, and with it, more nuanced insight into everything from the topics that certain demographics are interested in to the completion rates of specific books. While most publishers may not aspire to replicate the latest literary fad to the farcical extent that Homer does, some in the industry have expressed concerns that an overreliance on data in service of reducing risk could stymie the creative aspects of title acquisition and diminish the vibrancy of the industry
"Know your audience" is a common maxim among writers, one that pushes them to deliver the most useful or entertaining content they can for their readers. Yet knowing one's audience in a precise way has been a difficulty for book publishers up until fairly recently. Except
Before the emergence of the ebook, data about in-book reading behavior was not easily available to publishers. With ereaders and reading apps, though, reading habits can be captured and analyzed on a large scale, tracking how quickly readers complete books and where they lose interest. Yet few publishers are using this behavioral data to inform their decision making. "Reading behavior data is probably actionable in some business models, and it might actually be actionable for us," says Jim Hanas director of audience development at HarperCollins
