Archives for August 2006

More Schedule Notes There may not be any more issues of Lunch Deluxe this week — it depends on our schedule, and whether anything interesting happens. If not, we’ll back with the weekly deal round-up. Google x2 Widely featured today is the news that Google chose to publicize: they now let Google Book Search visitors download PDFs of public domain books. When you click to view a page from a “full view” book through the site, there is a download button (which also indicates how large the file will be.) Not fed to the press but posted yesterday on the […]

Schedule Lunch will be late tomorrow, but there should be news up at the PublishersMarketplace.com home page if you check in. BN Gets Subpoena on Stock Options Barnes & Noble disclosed in an SEC filing that on Friday it received a subpoena from the US District Attorney, seeking documents related to the company’s stock-options practices. The move follows a shareholder suit filed last month, which triggered an informal SEC inquiry as well. In its own review, the WSJ found “that Barnes & Noble granted stock options to senior executives at monthly lows. One such grant of 700,000 options to Leonard […]

Book and Arts Veterans to Leave Dallas Paper Just as we round-up the semi-annual celebrations of forthcoming fall books from a variety of newspapers comes disturbing news about the fragile status of book coverage as newspaper owners wrestle with what they want to be in the internet era. Longtime Dallas Morning News book critic Jerome Weeks reports that both he and books editor Charles Ealy have accepted the paper’s buyout offer. Management at owners Belo Corp. announced a plan to eliminate “at least 85” editorial jobs in June. Weeks indicates that “there are currently no plans to replace” either book […]

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 to put them all together. “nice deal” $1 – $49,000 “very nice deal” $50,000 – $99,000 “good deal” $100,000 – $250,000 “significant deal” $251,000 – $499,000 “major deal” $500,000 and up FICTION Debut Winner of the 2006 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for the Best First Book […]

Please Note No Lunch tomorrow. We’ll be back on Monday. Falling for… It’s time for the fall previews. The AP leads with religion in politics (which always makes a good wire service theme), including Senator John Danforth ‘s Faith and Politics, Mel White’s Religion Gone Bad, Dan Gilgoff’s The Jesus Machine, Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, and the Revered Barry Lynn’s Piety & Politics. BN fiction ruler Sessalee Hensley declares, “The list looks much stronger than last year. This is the most literary fall I’ve seen in a long time.” (This time last year, during what was supposed to be […]

Borders’ Weakness on Target Borders turned in the poor second quarter performance they warned of in July, but at least the company was at the better end of their lowered expectations. Superstore sales of $600 million were down 5.3 percent on a comparable-store basis, even as remodeled stores are performing better than other outlets. Waldenbooks were down more, as usual, to $126.5 million, a big 12.1 percent drop on a same-store basis. International growth is still sluggish, up 6 percent to $129 million, but down 3.4 percent on a comparable-store basis in local currency, due to continued weakness in the […]