Archives for May 2007

Winton Team Adds Another Winton, Shoemaker & Co.is acquiring Soft Skull Press, expecting to close by the end of June (at the same time as their acquisition of, and name change to, Counterpoint.) Current Soft Skull publisher Richard Nash will become editorial director of Soft Skull and executive editor for the parent company. Perenially cash-strapped, and even more so after the PGW bankruptcy, Soft Skull’s backlist comprises about 150 titles. Amazon Plays their Music Card, DRM Free Publishers may still be divided but the world at large is moving steadily towards consumer-friendly access and away from complicated locks on digital […]

Bertelsmann Income Drops on Napster Charges, Strong Euro In a brief first quarter overview, Bertelsmann reported sales of 4.38 billion euros, down from 4.46 billion euros a year ago, reflecting the absence this year of BMG Music Publishing revenue and the continued pounding of the dollar. The company says that “if-only” growth (our general term for their “adjusted for portfolio and foreign exchange effects”) was 1.7 percent. They reported a net loss of 70 million euros for the quarter, due to a 114 million euro special item for out-of-court settlement costs and provisions for lawsuits related to Napster. The company […]

This Week’s Releases: Pope and Bugliosi Newsweek covers (and excerpts) the Pope’s new book, releasing this week: “It is an orthodox biography — one that acknowledges the role of analytical scholarship while in fact leaving little room for a critical interpretation of Scripture. This approach is not surprising, given Benedict’s job description, but in a world where Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and other proponents of secularism credit belief in Jesus as one of the sources of the world’s ills, Benedict offers an unvarnished opposing view: belief in Jesus, he says, is the only thing that will save the world.” Story […]

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 One-time muse to fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, Sara Stockbridge’s HAMMER, set in […]

Thomson Sale Blows Past Estimates Thomson Learning, comprising higher-education, careers and library reference assets, is being sold to Apax Partners and OMERS Capital Partners (which oversees the Ontario municipal employees’ pension plan) for $7.75 billion — well above the roughly $5 billion bids that analysts were expecting. The CBC says that “as part of the transaction, OMERS will get majority ownership of Nelson Canada.” Perseus Ax Falls Quickly on Avalon Perseus Books Group CEO David Steinberger announced the next reorganization wave at the company in an internal letter yesterday. The Carroll & Graf and Thunder’s Mouth imprints will be eliminated, […]

Whose Your DAD? At today’s Book Industry Study Group (BISG) Making Information Pay Conference, consultant Mike Shatzkin of the Idea Logical Company officially previewed his lexicon of new acronyms to describe the growing herd of intermediaries who want to manage digital content for publishers (including large publishers themselves). In Shatzkin’s vision, just as nearly every publisher works with a physical distributor to bring their work to retail (and collect payment), the growing world of promotional and paid electronic content will require nearly everyone to have a companion digital distributor. Hence DADs — digital asset distributors. As part of a research […]