Dear Quality Chess readers,
As I’m sure some of you have already read elsewhere, Quality Chess is proud to announce that we have recently merged with Everyman Chess and New In Chess (NIC). The three publishing houses will be owned by a holding company while operating as separate businesses. Everyman Chess and NIC were previously owned by Chess.com. In return for relinquishing the print-publishing rights and operations of those two businesses, Chess.com has acquired the digital rights to the Quality Chess back catalogue up to the start of 2024.
We believe the deal to be a win-win-win: the respective print and electronic publishers will be able to focus on what they do best, leading to improved quality and quantity of products for customers. A lot more Quality Chess content will be offered on Chessable in the months ahead, while QC, NIC and Everyman Chess will each benefit from the shared knowledge of what the others do well.
One additional piece of news is that, more than fifteen years after joining Quality Chess, I am taking over from John Shaw as Chief Editor. John will write his own blog post on Friday.
Dear Andrew, these are indeed exciting developments. Congratulations on the deal, provided it helps your businesses. I am a huge fan of particularly the QC and NIC books, and hope that you can continue relasing great material.
One question I have is how this might affect ForwardChess. A good part of your publications has been provided on their platform too, which can be quite convenient to users. Will FC be able to retain their current content and continue to publish your material on their platform, or will all digital products of QC from now on only be available on Chessable?
Thanks! We have already gained some ideas about how to do things better at all three publishers, which should translate to better products for the readers and hopefully better business too.
Good question about Forward Chess (as well as our other digital partner Chess Tempo). I need to include a quick disclaimer as I’ve not personally seen the exact wording of contracts etc. However, I’m pleased to say that my understanding is that FC and CT will continue to sell their existing Quality Chess products exactly like before. The only thing that will change is that if FC or CT wish to add any pre-2024 QC titles that they don’t already have, they will now need to arrange that with Chess .com rather than with QC. For all new titles, we will continue to make them available on as many digital formats as possible, as we wish for everyone to do well.
Congratulations (I guess, for you write great books & I hope this is a beneficiary deal for all of you).
On a personal note: I was wondering, I own a few books (5 or so) on forward chess. I am kind of ok if those are just “lost”, but have there been taken some profylactic measures to make sure those will still be available? Or (even better) made available via chessable?
Anyway: keep up the great (printing) job.
Since you are branching out into the magazine business, any chance you could rescue the British Chess Magazine, which for many years has been a step down from a club magazine?
Frank – I can’t see any reason why your FC titles would get lost. If you have any more questions about the digital side of things, Chess .com should be able to answer them better than I can.
Paul – Sorry, not likely. This merger is more than enough for now!
Could you consider publishing the books by Cummings on the English Opening and The Modern Samisch by Montany as Chessable courses please
that’s indeed great! amazing vision and successful deal! good job Mr. CEO! the nicest CEO on the planet