Bookstore Sales Fell 1.3% In April
According to preliminary estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau on June 12, April bookstore sales fell to $684 million, down 1.3% from April 2013. For the first four months of 2014, bookstore sales fell 8.8% compared to the same period last year.
HBG Closes Business Plus
As part of the staff reductions made by the Hachette Book Group, the company is closing its Business Plus imprint and folding the titles into the Grand Central Publishing list. Rick Wolff, founder of Business Plus, is one of the 28 HBG employees who has been let go.
Court Upholds HathiTrust Verdict
In its decision on June 10, the Second Circuit upheld judge Harold Baer’s fair-use analysis in the Authors Guild v. HathiTrust case, holding that the scanning of entire works for the purpose of creating a full-text searchable database is “a quintessentially transformative use.” The court dismissed the Authors Guild’s contention that the scanning harmed their market.
