Archives for March 2006

Loss Increases at Scholastic; Forecasts Are Cut The performance roller-coaster that characterizes Scholastic has rounded the Harry Potter crest and is pointed down again, as the company announced a sharply higher loss for the third quarter of $15.5 million (compared to $0.8 million a year ago), on sales of $481 million, up just 1 percent. Forecasts for the year have been cut following the poor quarter. In the children’s book publishing and distribution division, sales of $271 million were down slightly from $272 million a year ago, though trade revenue by itself rose 6 percent, and continuities were up as […]

Profits Up at Random, On Slightly Improved Sales Bertelsmann announced results for their fiscal year this morning in Germany, and Random House’s performance essentially matched CEO Peter Olson’s description in his end-of-year letter. Similar to last year’s performance, sales nudged up “slightly,” by just over two percent, to 1.83 billion euros, as profitability increased more dramatically, to 166 million euros. Olson cites this as “continuing our steady upward trend of the last few years,” though the unit is still below 2002’s sales of 1.995 billion euros. (Profits, reported then as Ebita rather than Ebit, were 168 million euros.)   Random […]

Personnel News and Announcements Publisher of the children’s book group at Houghton Mifflin Alan Smagler is moving to Scholastic to become vp, trade sales, reporting to Ellie Berger, starting April 10. Smagler takes over from Gray Peterson, who will be reassigned to a senior sales position, reporting to Smagler. At Penguin Press, Jane Fleming has been promoted to associate editor. In the publicity department at Vintage/Anchor, Sloane Crosley has been promoted to assistant director of publicity. At the publicity department of Penguin children’s, Rhalee Hughes has been promoted to director of publicity. She has been at the company for almost […]

Personnel and Announcements St. Martin’s executive editor Jennifer Weis has been given the additional title of manager, concept development, in which she will “develop non-traditional book concepts.” Those ideas will include “book/movie development, creating custom publishing programs with companies, branded publishing, and other special projects.” Random House Audio Group publicity director Amanda D’Acierno has been promoted to the newly-created position of director, marketing and publicity. The position of marketing director, which had been held by Sara Schober, has been eliminated. Herbert Schaffner has been named publisher for business books at McGraw-Hill, “overseeing the daily operation of the editorial team and […]

Monday, March 20 Our Usual Reminder If for some reason this has reached you even though you are not a paying member of PublishersMarketplace, please visit the link below to join us all the time for complete deal reports and more. Click to register http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/register.shtml Deal Reports Just e-mail to deals@PublishersMarketplace if you aren’t using the online form linked below. Report a deal using the online form The Key As usual, the handy key to our Lunch deal categories. While all reports are always welcome, those that include a category will generally receive a higher listing when it comes time […]

The 2006 Book Sense Book of the Year Winners Adult Fiction The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova Adult Nonfiction Freakonomics, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner Children’s Literature Inkspell, by Cornelia Funke Children’s Illustrated Zen Shorts, by Jon J. Muth Click to see the runners-up as well Income Down at Borders, But Books Sales Have Strong Finish Like Barnes & Noble, Borders slightly exceeded analysts’ forecasts for fourth quarter income — though unlike BN, Borders’ earnings were lower than the same period last year. Decent fourth quarter sales helped the company finish a mediocre year well. Borders superstores registered […]