Archives for February 2007

Moonves Like S&S In yesterday’s conference call about the CBS earnings report, chief executive Leslie Moonves said there was “no need” to sell Simon & Schuster and he expects it to be part of CBS “for a long time to come.” Reuters Audible’s Report Card Audible trimmed their loss for the fourth quarter, down to $.7 million (from $2.2 million the year before), on sales of $23.3 million. Revenue for the full year was $82 million, up 30 percent, with a net loss of $8.4 million. Release Personnel News Stephen Roxburgh has been promoted to publisher of Boyds Mills Press. […]

Strong Finish for S&S Sales rose 7 percent in the fourth quarter for Simon & Schuster, to $252.5 million, helped by the Oprah-powered YOU: On a Diet, and operating income increased by the same percentage, to $38.9 million (including a bad debt allocation against the AMS bankruptcy). Parent company CBS records full fiscal-year sales at Simon & Schuster of $807 million, up 6 percent from $763.6 million in fiscal 2005, attributed to stronger frontlist and “higher distribution fee income.” Operating income was $68.5 million for the year, up four percent from $66 million in 2005. Since this marks the first […]

Penguin Finishes Well Full-year sales at Penguin rose 44 million pounds, for “underlying growth” of 3 percent, to 848 million pounds, or $1.664 billion. (The group’s total was lifted by the transfer of the Brady Games video game imprint into DK from Pearson’s professional publishing unit, and the acquisition of the Index direct-sales business.) Operating profit rose 6 million pounds, to 66 million pounds overall, or $130 million, though this was calculated as 22 percent growth in “underlying” profits. Penguin gets about half of its profits from the US, where profits in dollars rose nicely, but that effect is diluted […]

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 Janelle Brown’s ALL WE EVER WANTED WAS EVERYTHING, about a woman and […]

LAT Plans to Merge Book Review with Opinions The Los Angeles Times is working on a plan to turn their stand-alone Sunday book review section into a dual-cover tabloid-size section presenting book reviews read from one direction, and opinion columns read from the other direction. LAObserved.com reports on the changes based on sources at the paper. The blog notes: “Some believe the revamp has already received bean-counter approval to launch after the Times Festival of Books in April — it just wouldn’t do to have the rookie publisher and editor jeered at the paper’s biggest (by far) community event.” LAT […]

A Boost for Gardiner from King, and A Clown’s Applause The UK edition of crime writer Meg Gardiner’s 2002 thriller CHINA LAKE and her full Evan Delaney series is in demand here, in more ways than one, after Stephen King mentioned the book on his blog in December and then wrote about it in a February EW column. King calls her “the next suspense superstar.… This woman is as good as Michael Connelly and far better than Janet Evanovich.” (Gardiner lives in the UK now, but she is American and her books are set in Los Angeles.) Britt Carlson at […]