News Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in acquisitions hunt ORPHAN WORKS


DIGITALISATION


EUROPEAN TRADE HAILS EU ORPHAN WORKS DECISION Alan Osborn


European booksellers and publishers have welcomed the European Union Council of Ministers’s decision to approve legislation improving access to orphan works whose copyright-holders cannot be found. Te move could potentially open up a swathe of books to libraries, museums and similar non- commercial organisations. Although the new EU-wide rights


are essentially restricted to public- interest organisations, the industry has hailed the fact there is now more legal certainty over the issue. Anne Bergman-Tahon, director


of the Federation of European Publishers (FEP), said the requirement for a diligent search to be made before a work could be used would prevent libraries and museums using the rights “in a cavalier way”. She said: “It means you can’t look at the books on a shelf, which look as if they are orphan, decide to digitise them and make them available, then afterwards say you didn’t know.” Jessica Sanger, legal counsel for


German booksellers’ association, Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels, said the new directive was “a good compromise” and it would now be up to national legislators to transpose it into national laws. She added: “In Germany, a solution for orphan works is one step towards digitisation of library stocks. At the same time, we have developed solutions for the use of works which are out of commerce (but where rights-holders are known). We hope these will be enabled by law also.” In London, Sydney Davies, head


of trade and industry at the Booksellers Association, said: “We have always been in favour of governments deciding what to do about orphan works. Their availability should not be left up to private companies.”


HMH IS ‘BACK IN BUSINESS’ Tom Tivnan


Linda Zecher, the c.e.o. and director of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, said the education and trade giant is “positioned well for acquisitions” just four months after it emerged from bankruptcy. When Zecher joined the Boston-


based education and trade giant from Microsoft last September, the company was saddled with debt worth $3.1bn. HMH filed for Chapter 11 restructuring on 21st May this year and came out of it 31 days later. “We literally have no debt except for


the debt we put on the books for the opportunity to borrow against it,” Zecher told Te Bookseller Daily at yesterday’s Frankfurt Book Fair. “We are back in business in a big way.”


She added: “We’re positioned well


for growth, we’re positioned well for acquisitions. We are moving quickly into leveraging our content with technology and strategic partnerships.


Zecher


Tere are some acquisitions we could make with small technology companies that can really support us in the education space, and we want to be able to do that.” Zecher described the ongoing


digitisation in the education sector as “a dimmer switch rather an on/off button”. She said: “Digitisation is obviously the way the market is going. But you have schools and academic environments that can’t absorb all content digitally. Even in a country like the US, you still have issues with school budgets, infrastructure, wiring in schools and bandwidth issues. “Our strategy is a hybrid model and


print and digital are simply different ways in which we leverage our content to our customers.”


GOLLANCZ STORMS FOR BARRICADE


Orion imprint Gollancz has signed three books by a début science-fiction thriller author in a pre-empt. Deputy publishing director Simon Spanton bought


world volume rights in Barricade by Jon Wallace via Ed Wilson at Johnson & Alcock in a three-book deal. Te book is set in the near future where a war between the artificial humans and the humans they were meant


S&S NOT IN THE COLD WITH FIENNES DEAL


Simon & Schuster UK has won a four- way auction for a memoir by British explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes, which will tell the story of his upcoming winter crossing of Antarctica. Fiennes’ previous titles were


published by Hodder. Non-fiction director Mike Jones and m.d. Ian Chapman bought world rights from Ed Victor in Te Coldest Journey on Earth for publication in autumn 2014. S&S’ offer included an exact replica of a bottle of Mackinlay’s whisky taken on Ernest Shackleton’s 1907– 1909 expedition to the South Pole. The book will describe the


expedition Fiennes is embarking on this December, as he aims to complete the first-ever Antarctica winter crossing, a 2,000-mile journey.


4 THE BOOKSELLER DAILY AT FRANKFURT | 11 OCTOBER 2012 Fiennes


to serve has left the world in ruins, and follows Kenstibec, an artificial human who is “very hard to kill” and “very hard to like”. Spanton praised the book’s “taut pacing” and


“outrageous characters you nevertheless believe utterly and a future that is all too likely”. Barricade will be published in early 2014.


2,000


Fiennes plans to cover this winter in the Antarctic


The distance in miles Ranulph


Picture: Liz Scarf


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