Brian Murray

At the London Book Fair yesterday HarperCollins announced a significant expansion of its foreign language publishing program. The company rebranded a number of Harlequin's international publishing assets as HaperCollins Holland, HarperCollins Japan, HarperCollins Nordic, and HarperCollins Polska.

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

HarperCollins has unveiled plans to expand in the German book market. At the Frankfurt Book Fair, DW's Manuela Kasper-Claridge spoke to CEO Brian Murray about new book formats and their challenges for the US publisher.

DW: Mr. Murray, do you see any new market trends at this year's Frankfurt Book Fair?

Brian Murray: We still see this trend of globalization where rights are being sold of our authors in more and more countries. And also there's this continuing trend of innovation on the digital front.

TORONTO -- Torstar Corp., owner of the Toronto Star and other newspapers, is selling the Harlequin book publishing company for $455 million to global media company News Corp. and it will be run as a division of HarperCollins Publishers.

Torstar (TSX:TS.B) says the sale will strengthen its financial position and a portion of the net proceeds will be used for debt reduction.

Harlequin, known for its romance books, has been part of Torstar for 39 years.

Despite perceptions that the publishing business is troubled, or even facing the same tumult of the music business, the CEO of HarperCollins said that the growth in digital book sales were improving margins and even royalty rates for authors, and even creating ways to test variable pricing for e-books once they are released.

At the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference on Wednesday, HarperCollins CEO Brian Murray said that the industry was "not going the way of the music business," with digital publishing translating into greater consumption of books purchased, he noted.