No New Kindle

Amazon won’t release a new version of the Kindle until 2009, at the earliest. Sales of the device and titles for it are ahead of expectations, Amazon said, and e-books now account for more than 10% of unit sales for books that are available both in digital and print formats.

Seo Leaving S&S Kids

Ginee Seo, v-p and editorial director of Ginee Seo Books, an imprint of Atheneum Books for Young Readers at Simon & Schuster, has resigned. Her last day in the office will be October 30, but she will continue to work with S&S on a freelance basis on the titles that were scheduled to be published by her imprint in 2009 and 2010; those books will be released as Atheneum titles.

Hachette Merges Orbit, Yen

Hachette Book Group has combined its Orbit and Yen Press imprints into a single division to be known as Orbit. Tim Holman, who launched the sci-fi Orbit, will head the new division, while Kurt Hassler has been named publishing director of the manga and graphic novel publisher Yen. Rich Johnson, who was copublisher of Yen, is leaving the company.

Sports Publishing Files Chapter 11

Sports Publishing has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of Central Illinois. The publisher estimated assets of between $100,001 and $500,000 and liabilities of $1 million to $10 million. Ingram Publisher Services will continue to accept returns from the company through January 23, 2009, but stopped shipping new titles October 24. Sports Publishing is said to be close to signing with a new distributor.

DNAML, MPS Ink Deal

DNAML, makers of the DNL e-book format and the DNL reader software, and MPS Mobile’s Global Reader, a distributor of e-books to mobile phones worldwide, announced a partnership through which they will promote each other’s e-book products. The DNL e-book format provides a computer-based multimedia reading experience through DNAML’s DNL reader software, which the company says has been downloaded to more than 110 million computers. Global Reader is available on 80 cellular phone networks in 160 countries.

Quarto on Track

Quarto said third-quarter results were in line with expectations. For the nine months, sales rose 17%, to £78.7 million ($128 million), and operating profit increased 15%, to £6.2 million ($10 million). Chairman Laurence Orbach was relatively upbeat about prospects for the holidays, believing that books will prove to be inexpensive gifts during the economic slowdown.