At the recommendation of activist shareholder Richard Schottenfeld, who controls a roughly 6.9 percent stake in the company, Barnes & Noble has added a new director to their board. They appointed Hain Celestial founder Irwin Simon as an independent board member. Simon is in the process of stepping down as ceo at Hain, after which…
Corporate: Pearson Gains On Steady Quarter, Scribd Pairs with NYT
Pearson provided a trading update on the first nine months of 2018. Total revenues were flat, with a 3 percent decline in US higher education courseware offsetting growth in the rest of the company. The company attributed some of the revenue decline to delays caused by the implementation of new enterprise software in the US,…
People, Etc.: Moldow to Retire
Susan Moldow, president of Scribner Publishing Group and publisher of Touchstone, is retiring at the end of the year. She has been with Simon & Schuster since 1994, shortly after the Macmillan acquisition. CEO Carolyn Reidy notes, “Her first order of business was to rationalize and reorganize a collection of three disparate adult imprints-Charles Scribner’s…
Anna Burns Wins Booker Prize
The Booker Prize was a solid win for independent publishers, going to Irish writer Anna Burns for her novel Milkman. Faber & Faber publishes her in the UK, and Graywolf had purchased rights recently. The US publisher originally had the book scheduled for fall 2019 publication, but has moved the release date up to December…
AAP Reports A Good August
The AAP reported monthly StatShot statistics compiled from 1,080 reporting publishers for August. Trade sales of $643.8 million were up $35.6 million compared to a year ago, up 5.9 percent. Adult sales rose by $22.7 million, as children’s and young adult sales were up by $12.9 million. On the consumer side, digital audio continued its…
People, Etc.
At Simon & Schuster Children’s, Devin MacDonald has joined as marketing manager. She was most recently brand manager for Harry Potter, Captain Underpants, and Dog Man at Scholastic. Audrey Gibbons has been promoted to publicity manager; Jill Hacking moves up to marketing operations and events associate; Amy Hendricks becomes marketing associate; Samantha Benson has been promoted to associate publicist; and Emily…