Archives for November 2005

F+W Buyer Sues Previous Owners Even financially naive book publishing people took note when Providence Equity Partners sold F+W Publications to another private equity group, Abry Partners $500 million earlier this year, garnering more of a magazine sales multiple (estimated at two times sales) for the company than a book publishing multiple. Now Abry is suing Providence in a Delaware court, the Boston Globe reports, alleging “F&W artificially inflated its revenue for the six-month period ended June 30, 2005” by “channel stuffing” (incentivizing retailers to buy excess returnable inventory) so that “it overpaid for the company. Abry wants to rescind […]

AMS Restates Losses and Hints at Other Parts of Investigation Advanced Marketing Services (AMS) issued a release earlier today updating investors on their restatement of previous financial statements, and providing new information about their performance this year. The “cumulative after-tax effect of the full restatement will be a reduction in retained earnings of approximately $9.7 million as of March 31, 2003.” (They had estimated the restatement would be $11 million.) AMS has also admitted that a previous liability accounting for time differences between publishers’ records and the wholesaler’s own records was overstated by approximately $7.5 million in various years. While […]

Evans to Leave WMA; Wise to Join Curtis Brown; And More Joni Evans is leaving the William Morris Agency after 11 years, as of next January, “for the next act in my professional life,” to be announced later. Co-heads of the literary department Suzanne Gluck and Jennifer Rudolph Walsh note in a statement, “Our admiration and friendship for her will always remain. She’s made an extraordinary contribution to our company and to her distinguished authors, who we will continue to proudly represent.” Evans says, “I want some time to think about the implications of these things [the dramatic changes, many […]

Personnel News Soho Press president and publisher Juris Jurjevics will step down on January 2006, to pursue his writing (his first thriller was just published) and teaching (he will lead a graduate course in publishing at Boston’s Emerson College.) Jurjevics will continue to associate with the house as editor-at-large. At Thunder’s Mouth, Anita Diggs will join the company in mid-November as senior editor. Her most recent editorial position was at Ballantine’s One World Books, and she was an agent at The Literary Group. Chrysalis Sale Finished The spinoff of the Chrysalis publishing unit to a management buyout team has been […]

A Deal on Deals As part of our fourth anniversary celebration, we’re happy to offer you a twenty-five percent discount for a limited time on our comprehensive printed compendium of over 3,000 deals for 2004, helpfully arranged by sub-category, price range and imprint, and cross-referenced by editor, agent, and more. Follow the link below for more information about the book (including downloadable PDF samples.) And make sure to use only the link below to qualify for this special members-only discount. Deal Book info and purchase http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/dealbookOffer.shtml If for some reason this has reached you even though you are not a […]

Noted A day of scrambling for interviews, meetings, unexpected pediatric appointments, and more have made this an after-lunch, and potentially typo-prone, snack. Back to the Future Having said a lot about everyone’s latest electronic initiatives last night, there’s still a little more to add. Further to yesterday’s remark from Richard Sarnoff at Random House indicating “we think Amazon will be the first vendor to offer an online viewing model under Random House’s terms,” Sarnoff has written to add “clarification and additional perspective.” He explains, “While the business model Random House announced yesterday may accommodate Amazon Pages, it would not accommodate […]