Amazon Will Pay French Fine, and Continue to Discount Books
Per our speculation when first noting that a French court would fine
Amazon a mighty one thousand euros a day for the sin of exceeding
limits on discounting books, the company announced yesterday that it
would pay the fines and continue the discounts rather than give in.
Director of the French unit Xavier Garambois says, "We are determined
to follow every avenue available to us to overturn this law."
Jeff Bezos invited French customers to sign an online petition of
support for their appeal and by last night 120,000 people did so. Bezos
said in an e-mail, "France would be the only country in the world where
the free delivery practiced by Amazon would be declared illegal." (The
court found free shipping illegal in cases in which the value of the
shipping was greater than the maximum allowance of 5 percent of the
retail price.)
The IHT notes, "Amazon's defiance has the potential to backfire. Amazon
must pay the fine for 30 days if it continues to violate the court
order, at which point the court will reconsider the fine and then
extend it, lower it or raise it."
IHT
Bloomsbury Says Signs Are Good
Bloomsbury provided one of those European "trading updates" that
doesn't really say anything but still gets covered widely in the UK,
this time providing the apparently good news that "2007 trading was
better than expected" and "2008 is off to a good start." They cited
good sales in the UK (where they published The Kite Runner) and Germany
in particular. Actual results won't be released until April 1.
Bloomberg
What Everyone Else Is Reading
Today's full Lunch Deluxe includes stories and links
on:
Quebecor World
Accepts Rescue Offer
Urquhart Not Wolfe
Kudzu and Peppertree Closing
A Business Book of the Year
plus our weekly analysis of over a dozen major bestseller lists from
around the country and dozens of new deals, and full access to over 30
deals from yesterday (and 160 from the previous week).
Meanwhile, PublishersMarketplace.com always features all of the unique
data and tools that drive business every day: Unlimited access to
deals, our new Top Dealmakers (with 180 lists of busy agents, agencies,
editors and imprints) live contacts, our representation database,
comprehensive coverage of reviews and bestseller lists from all over,
special tools ranging from the Book Tracker to Amazoom, our custom
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Personnel News
Hyperion editor-in-chief Will Schwalbe "is leaving to pursue some ideas
he has for the next chapter in his career" according to an internal
memo. He tells the Observer, "I have some ideas that I'm excited
about," without specifying details. "There are a lot of people I want
to talk to."
Observer
item
Managing director of Random House New Zealand Michael Moynahan steps up
to chairman of that unit, and he becomes managing director of Random
House India (established in 2005) as well. RH NZ sales and marketing
director Karen Ferns will take over day-to-day management of the
division as managing director. Moynahan continues to report to Brian
Davies, managing director, overseas companies for Random UK.
Sonny Mehta, whose titles include chairman of Random House India, says
in the announcement: "Local Publishing is currently a major focus for
Random House India, and as titles such as The Music Room and Great
Speeches of Modern India demonstrate, the local list is already
achieving both critical and commercial success. Given Michael's strong
track record in growing local publishing at Random House New Zealand, I
am confident he will give even more impetus to this key area of our
Indian business."
In the US at Random House, publisher of RH Trade Paperbacks and Modern
Library Jane von Mehren was named a senior vice president, continuing
to report to Gina Centrello. As she notes in her memo, "our paperback
program has become a real force in the industry since Jane's arrival in
2005.
Also, Avideh Bashirrad and Debbie Aroff, whose promotions were noted
yesterday, work in the Random House Publishing Group marketing
department, not in RH Trade Paperbacks.
In the UK, wholesaler Gardners Books has been named as the fulfillment
partner for Borders UK's new web site, due to launch in March. In
addition to physical books and audio books, Gardners will also offer
e-books.
Biblio Is Sold
National Book Network announced the sale of its small press
distribution arm Biblio Distribution, to AtlasBooks, the distribution
division of BookMasters. BookMasters is the company that took over
distribution for a large number of BookWorld's 100+ clients after that
company went out of business.
NBN says that approximately 500 Biblio clients will stay with the
transferred unit under the same terms and conditions. They say that
"the sale and assignment is similar to the process followed by Perseus
when it added 150 PGW clients through the assumption of PGW
agreements." Meaning that Atlas is taking over the contracts and
services for the Biblio clients, but not making cash payment to NBN for
the unit. NBN head Jed Lyons notes to us that "unlike PGW clients who
were paid less than what they were owed by PGW, we are going to pay the
Biblio clients 100 percent of what they are owed. The contracts are
being assigned and terms will be honored 'as is' by AtlasBooks. We will
pay clients what we owe them in full and so will AtlasBooks when it
begins billing."
Lyons notes in the announcement, "Our decision to sell Biblio is the
result of our desire to focus our time and resources on the sales
representation and distribution of the larger NBN publishers."
AtlasBooks and BookMasters COO Dave Wurster comments, "We have the
resources to focus our efforts on exceeding their sales goals, while
offering additional services such as direct-to-consumer sales support
and marketing opportunities."
The companies note that "a list of Biblio clients and their ISBN
prefixes will be shared with retail and wholesale customers before the
end of the month" and all inventory will be transferred to AtlasBooks'
distribution center in Ashland, OH.
Lots of New Jobs
We've added another 6 new job listings since
yesterday (after a busy end to last week) at our industry-leading Job
Board, the latest among over 60 just since the beginning of 2008.
For employers, we provide the unbeatable combination of the largest
circulation in the business by far, a total focus on book publishing
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And for job-seekers, we present great new possibilities every day and
conveniences like an RSS ping to keep you posted on every new offering.
Among the latest:
Business Manager [Full Time]
Ten Speed Press (Berkely, CA)
Assistant Marketing Manager, Direct Response and Marketing Services [Full Time]
The National Academies Press (Washington, DC)
Editor, Life Sciences [Full Time]
Springer Science + Business Media (New York, NY)
Editorial Director Taunton Books [Full Time]
The Taunton Press (Newtown, CT)
Marketing Assistant [Full Time]
Parachute Publishing LLC (New York, NY)
Sales Representative [Full Time]
Penguin Group (USA) (Philadelpha, PA)
Publishersmarketplace.com/jobs
Employers:
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Bestseller Radar
Here is our usual weekly look at new "unique" entries on
the 14 key bestseller lists from around the country that we track every
week. If you want to do any historical research on bestsellers from any
of the lists we track, you can use our Bestsellers home page to search
by individual ISBN or pull up particular lists from specific points in
time.
Click through to main Bestseller page at PublishersMarketplace any time
to see what's interesting and relevant to you.
Bestseller
home
Barnes &
Noble
Hardcover Fiction
1 Plum Lucky, by Janet Evanovich
Boston Globe
Hardcover Non-fiction
8 Diary of a Red Sox Season, by Johnny
Pesky
Los Angeles Times
Hardcover Fiction
15 A Version of the Truth, by Jennifer
Kaufman and Karen Mack
Paperback Non-fiction
7 A Blessing in Disguise: 39 Life
Lessons from Today's Greatest Teachers, by Andrea Joy Cohen
New York Times
Hardcover Fiction
15 Bleeding Kansas, by Sara Paretsky
32 Touchstone, by Laurie R. King
Hardcover Non-fiction
22 The Geography of Bliss, by Eric
Weiner
Mass-market Fiction
29 One Last Scream, by Kevin O'Brien
Paperback Advice
12 J.K. Lasser's Your Income Tax 2008,
by J. K. Lasser Editorial
14 The Biggest Loser Fitness Program, by
The Biggest Loser Experts and Cast with Maggie Greenwood-Robinson
15 One Year to an Organized Life, by
Regina Leeds
Paperback Fiction
33 My Big Fat Supernatural Honeymoon, by
P. N. Elrod (Ed.)
San Francisco Chronicle
Hardcover Non-fiction
7 Helping Me Help Myself, by Beth Lisick
USA Today
89 Blizzard of the Blue Moon, by Mary
Pope Osborne
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