Tuesday News: The Seven-Figure Advance, Apple settlement approved, report on UK digital lending, and Romance cover re-enactments

JanetPublishing Newsadvances / Apple / collusion / covers / digital lending / public libraries / publishing9 Comments

The Rise of the Seven-Figure Advance – This is a pretty interesting trend, because it seems to point to both the importance of the so-called “big books” for traditional publishing, and the competition for those books, which suggests that publishers are not finding a lot of material they feel is worth the large front-end payout. In some ways this seems to be a continuation of the business model that has historically driven traditional publishing. Some industry folks quoted in the story seem to suggest that publishers are acquiring fewer books, while others see editors going after more and new material. In other words, the usual inconclusiveness about the state of traditional publishing.

George Gibson, an industry veteran who is now publishing director at Bloomsbury USA, warned against reading too much into the latest round of big deals, noting that they happen “fairly regularly during the year.” Nonetheless, Gibson acknowledged that the business has changed. For the Big Five, especially, the highly sought-after projects have become essential. “The game plan to make your budget, or exceed it, relies on having bestsellers. That’s always been the case, but it’s the case now more so than ever.” Because both midlist and backlist titles aren’t selling as well as they once did, Gibson explained, the big books, “are more important.” –Publishers Weekly

Settlement in Apple Case Over E-Books Is Approved – Another hurdle toward settlement in the Apple case has been cleared, now that Judge Cote has approved the deal. There is speculation that pretty much everyone involved in this action — in all of its incarnations — are exhausted and just want the whole labyrinthine mess to be over.

In the hearing on Friday, Judge Denise L. Cote of Federal District Court in Manhattan approved an unusual settlement reached this summer in which Apple agreed to pay $400 million to consumers in cash and e-book credits, and $50 million to lawyers.

Those figures could still change, however, if an appeals court overturns a 2013 verdict in the case, in which Apple was found to have conspired with five major publishers to fix the price of e-books. The court, which will hear Apple’s challenge on Dec. 15, is not expected to change its previous ruling. –New York Times

An Incomplete Report on a Flawed Pilot Program Suggests that Library eBook Loans Don’t Drive Sales – The UK Publishers Association recently released their report on a six month pilot program in UK libraries, concluding that, among other things, digital lending is on the rise, digital borrowing is not undermining physical borrowing, and digital lending does not appear to be leading to digital purchasing. Nate Hoffelder has taken the report to task for a number of insufficiencies, including incomplete analysis of the borrowing-to-lending correlation:

There are some interesting conclusions here, but did you catch what was missing from the publicly available information?

For one thing, a list of titles included in the pilot, and a list of the stores which were available via the libraries’ websites. There was also no mention on the possible effect that the library ebook loans may have had on sales in ebookstores.

While I do agree that measuring the impact of library ebook loans is important, you can’t do that without at least trying to survey the entire ebook market. That was not discussed in the status report, and thus the report is incomplete. –The Digital Reader

10 Unretouched Romance Novel Covers Reenacted by Real People – Someone submitted this through the DA submission form, and OMG I don’t know whether to be delighted or stupefied. Maybe both. All I can say is that these models are brave. –Cosmopolitan

Janet

isn't sure if she's an average Romance reader, or even an average reader, but a reader she is, enjoying everything from literary fiction to philosophy to history to poetry. Historical Romance was her first love within the genre, but she's fickle and easily seduced by the promise of a good read. She approaches every book with the same hope: that she will be filled from the inside out with something awesome that she didnʼt know, didnʼt think about, or didnʼt feel until that moment. And she's always looking for the next mind-blowing read, so feel free to share any suggestions!

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