BTW News Briefs

Lawsuit Filed Against Apple and Five Agency Model Publishers

On August 9, the Seattle-based law firm Hagens Berman filed a class action lawsuit against Apple and five publishers who are selling e-books using the agency model. The suit claims that Apple and the five publishers — Hachette, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, HarperCollins, and Penguin—colluded to illegally fix e-book prices in order to “boost profits and force e-book rival Amazon to abandon its pro-consumer discount pricing.”

Random House, the last of the “big six” publishers to adopt the agency model, is not included in the class action suit filed by Anthony Petru of Oakland, California, and Marcus Mathis of Natchez, Mississippi.

Attorney Steve Berman told Publishing Perspectives that evidence supporting its case is currently all “circumstantial.”  If the case is approved by the California court system, the firm would then seek out trail of evidence.

Borders Given Okay to Sell Name, Website, Leases

On August 10, a bankruptcy judge gave approval for Borders to auction its name and real estate assets, according to Reuters. An auction for intellectual property, including trademarks, website, brand name, and customer lists, is scheduled for September 14.

The judge also gave approval for auctions of Borders remaining leases, which are divided into two groups, those that must be assumed or broken by September 30 and those that fall beyond that date.

Amazon.com Unveils Kindle Cloud Reader

On August 10, Amazon.com unveiled the Kindle Cloud Reader, a device based on HTML5, which enables customers to read Kindle e-books on their web browser online or offline with no downloading or installation required.

The Cloud Reader is Amazon’s response to Apple’s recently instituted rule requiring retailers to remove buy buttons that take users directly to their websites and to pay a 30 percent commission on each sale made through the iPad app. The new Amazon.com reader circumvents Apple’s requirements and allows readers to read on their iPad and buy directly from Amazon.com.

Kindle Cloud Reader is available for Safari on iPad, Safari on desktop, and Chrome.

Philip Levine Named Poet Laureate

On August 10, Librarian of Congress James H. Billington announced the appointment of Philip Levine as the Library’s 18th Poet Laureate. “Philip Levine is one of America’s great narrative poets,” Billington said. “His plainspoken lyricism has, for half a century, championed the art of telling ‘The Simple Truth’—about working in a Detroit auto factory, as he has, and about the hard work we do to make sense of our lives.”

Levine is the author of 20 collections of poems, including most recently News of the World (2009), which the New York Times Book Review described as “characteristically wise.” Levine won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for The Simple Truth; the National Book Award in 1991 for What Work Is and in 1980 for Ashes: Poems New and Old; the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1979 for both Ashes: Poems New and Old and 7 Years From Somewhere; and the 1975 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize for Names of the Lost.

Levine, who succeeds W.S. Merwin, will begin his duties on Monday, October 17.

Sally Dedecker to Direct BEA Conference Program

On August 9, BookExpo America introduced 30-year book industry veteran Sally Dedecker as BEA’s new Director of Education. In her new position, which is effective immediately, Dedecker will be responsible for producing and executing the BEA Conference Program, which includes curating program content and securing speakers. She will also lead the BEA Conference Advisory Board, help create programming for the BEA Insight Author Stages, oversee and produce the BEA DIY Conference, and  work on producing a series of webinars over the course of the year that will provide practical hands on information about reaching and engaging readers.

Dedecker, who runs her own consultancy business, Sally Dedecker Enterprises, will be adding her BEA responsibilities to her list of business activities. 

Dedecker has held senior management positions at Simon & Schuster and Ingram Book Company and she sits on the board of the Book Industry Study Group.

 Ann Wachur Honored for Service to NEIBA Booksellers

The New England Independent Booksellers Association has named Ann Wachur, a sales rep for the Penguin Group, the recipient of its 2011 Saul Gilman Award for outstanding service as a sales rep to New England’s indie bookstores.   

Wachur began her career as a bookseller at the now-defunct Barrett Bookstore in Stamford, Connecticut.

PEN 2011 Literary Award Winners Announced

 On August 10, PEN American Center announced the winners and runners-up of the 2011 PEN Awards. Among this year’s winners, who will be honored along with the runners-up, at a ceremony on Wednesday, October 12, at CUNY Graduate Center in New York City, are:

PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize ($25,000): Two winners— Susanna Daniel, Stiltsville (Harper Perennial) and   Danielle Evans, Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self (Riverhead)

PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award ($10,000): Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Emperor of All Maladies (Scribner)

PEN/W.G. Sebald Award for a Fiction Writer in Mid-Career ($10,000): Aleksandar Hemon

 PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction ($10,000): Robert Perkinson, Texas Tough: The Rise of America’s Prison Empire (Metropolitan Books)

The full list of winners and runners-up can be found at pen.org.