Simon and Schuster Inc.
March 24, 2015
Digital reading platform Curriculet announced last week partnerships with Simon & Schuster and Penguin Random House, making thousands more titles available to the over 500,000 K-12 teachers and students that use the platform. The deals ups Curriculet's library to over 30,000 ebooks.
February 13, 2015
Revenue and profits fell in 2014 at Simon & Schuster, parent company CBS reported. Sales declined 3.8%, to $778 million, while operating profit dropped 5.6%, to $101 million.
The publisher, which saw sales and earnings rise in 2013, closed 2014 on a soft note with sales down 4.4% in the fourth quarter, compared to the final period of 2013, and operating income down 30%.
S&S CEO Carolyn Reidy said 2013 had a number of positive sales surprises--including several Duck Dynasty books and The Great Gatsby--that weren't repeated in 2014.
February 10, 2015
Scribd will expand its library to include comic books today. The ebook subscription service just announced it has acquired more than 10,000 comic books and graphic novels, bringing its total title count to the 1 million mark. Under Scribd's $8.99 per month subscription, users will get access to classic runs of comics like The Avengersand X-Men, plus titles like Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
Scribd has partnered with more than 10 comic book publishers, including Marvel, Archie, IDW, and Arcana. It's the first ebook subscription service to lock down a comic book partnership of this size.
January 30, 2015
NEW YORK, January 29-Simon & Schuster is pleased to announce North Star Way, a new publishing unit that will offer authors an expanded suite of profile-building, ancillary services that extend beyond the boundaries of traditional publishing. North Star Way will partner with its authors to develop strategies that amplify and increase their reach, providing a singular source for creating and managing the many diverse elements that will grow their careers and maximize their sales in multiple mediums.
January 28, 2015
In a brief brief order this week, Judge Denise Cote ruled that plaintiffs in a second e-book price-fixing case cannot depose HarperCollins CEO Brian Murray.
The plaintiffs in the case (Australian upstart DNAML; Lavoho, LLC, a "successor" to the Diesel eBook Store; and Abbey House Media, formerly BooksOnBoard) had asked that Murray be required to sit for a deposition, but in her order, Cote sided with Harper attorneys, who argued Murray has been deposed three times in connection with the Apple price-fixing case
January 16, 2015
The "Big 5" book publishers are feeling good and riding high.
Unlike shrinking movie box office receipts and plummeting music sales, 2014 book sales were up a healthy 4% to 5% all year -- though the true final numbers aren't in yet.
Publishers also defeated their top frenemy, Amazon (AMZN), at least somewhat last year, by winning back control over ebook pricing in new multiyear sales deals stuck by French-based Hachette and CBS (CBS) unit Simon & Schuster. At the same time, the portion of the market sold in ebook form
January 13, 2015
On Tuesday, startups Scribd and Oyster both announced partnerships with publishing heavyweight Macmillan to bring over a thousand new titles to their respective e-book subscription services. That means the two startups are now working with majority of the so-called Big Five publishers; both had previously offered books from HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster. The Macmillan partnership grows Scribd's $8.99-a-month a la carte collection to more than 500,000 book titles, in addition to the 30,000 audiobooks available on the service after Scribd added them late last year.
January 13, 2015
Today Macmillan becomes the third Big 5 publisher to make its works available on ebook subscriptions sites Oyster and Scribd, joining HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster. The move to subscription comes as no surprise. In a year-end letter to staff Macmillan CEO John Sargent wrote that, "We plan to try subscription with backlist books, and mostly with titles that are not well represented at bricks and mortar retail stores."
January 12, 2015
Simon & Schuster is making a push into paid online video, with a new website offering online courses from popular health, finance and self-help authors.
The cost of the first batch of online courses ranges from $25 to $85, and includes workbooks and access to live question-and-answer sessions with three authors: Dr. David B. Agus, the best-selling author of "The End of Illness"; Zhena Muzyka, who wrote the self-help book "Life by the Cup"; and Tosha Silver, the author of the spiritual advice book "Outrageous Openness."
January 7, 2015
Ebooks are feeling a bit hungover heading into the new year. The 50 Shades of Grey exuberance of 2011 and 2012 feels long ago. The first seemingly viable ebook subscription services launched at the end of 2013 (Scribd, Oyster) and Amazon launched its own ebook subscription service, Kindle Unlimited, mid-2014.
The main difference between Kindle Unlimited and Scribd and Oyster - all of which cost around $10 a month - is that Kindle Unlimited has way fewer books that people have heard of. That's because Scribd and Oyster have been able to attract big-5 publishers
