Penguin, Amazon Settle
Penguin and Amazon have settled their dispute, and Penguin frontlist ebook titles should begin appearing in the Kindle bookstore no later than Monday. CEO David Shanks said, “The deal is done,” without offering details on the dispute. Penguin's new ebooks have not appeared on Amazon since Penguin moved to the agency model on April 1.
Schlosser Named CEO at HCC
Ron Schlosser, recently a senior adviser to Providence Equity Partners, has been named chairman and CEO of Haights Cross Communications. Interim CEO Paul Crecca, who had a key role in revamping HCC's finances, will return to the position of CFO.
B&N eReader App for iPad
An iPad-enhanced version of Barnes & Noble's BN eReader is now available. The app also allows users to share e-books. Users can select certain titles from their library to lend to friends with a Nook, iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch (as well as a PC), for a 14-day period. The app can be downloaded at the B&N Web site, and B&N is also giving customers who create a BN.com account as well as download the app three complimentary classic titles.
Alibris Debuts Author Stores
Alibris, the newand used-book online marketplace, has launched Author Stores, a program that allows self-published authors to sell their books through the Alibris marketplace and its partners.
New Auel Deal
The Land of Painted Caves, the sixth and final book of Jean M. Auel's megabestselling Earth's Children series, will be published March 29, 2011. The deal was announced at BEA by Crown Books and the Jean Naggar Literary Agency. The book will be published simultaneously worldwide on the same day in hardcover and, a first for Auel, in an ebook edition along with the rest of the series. Bantam will release ebook editions of past titles, and Brilliance Audio will handle the audiobook format. Beginning with The Clan of the Cave Bear (1980), the series has sold more than 45 million copies worldwide.
Disney to Manage Marvel Kids' Books
Disney Publishing Worldwide has begun managing the global children's licensed book publishing business formerly overseen by Marvel Entertainment. Disney acquired Marvel in 2009. The move is no surprise and covers only licensed children's books; Marvel's extensive comic book and graphic novepublishing program remains separate from DPW.
ABA Teams With Google
Beginning with the launch of Google Editions this summer, Google will provide wholesale support for e-book distribution through the ABA's IndieBound. com site. The agreement is nonexclusive. Google will not sell print titles, but the system will support bundling print and e-books.
A 'PW' App
U.K. digital vendor Exact Editions and Publishers Weekly launched a PW iPhone app at the start of BEA; the app offers free access to PW's pre-BEA issue and subsequent issues, as well as PW's Show Daily. PW also announced content deals with Scribd .com and digital newsstand Zinio.
Correction
In last week's “Agents Weigh the Growth of Alternate Publishing Options” story, there was an omission in the references made to a portion of author Joe Konrath's sales for his Jack Daniels series. As he pointed out on his blog, A Newbie's Guide to Publishing, the hardcover sales for the first Jack Daniels book, Whiskey Sour, were not included. We cited the title's mass market sales, but did not include its hardcover sales; according to Nielsen Book-Scan, that title sold 5,000 copies in hardcover. Also, it was not noted that Cherry Bomb, the most recent published title in that series, has not yet been released in paperback.
