Archives for June 2007

Personnel News Agent Randi Murray is joining DeFiore and Company, still based in California and focusing on literary and commercial fiction, and narrative nonfiction. She has run an eponymous agency by herself in the San Francisco Bay area, with clients including Ira Glass, Joyce Maynard, Clare Langley-Hawthorne, Richard Muller, and Justin Catanoso. At HarperOne, Gideon Weil has been promoted to executive editor and Cynthia DiTiberio has been promoted to associate editor. Mary Funchion joins Oxford University Press’s reference division as development editor. She was at Facts on File. Bloomsbury has hired Kevin Cieslicki as business manager, reporting to cfo Peter […]

Waterstone’s Hopes They’re Improving from Terrible to Poor They try to sugar-coat it, but UK-based retailer HMV and their bookselling unit Waterstone’s continue to struggle with their turnaround plan. Overall full-year results at HMV were a little worse than analysts were expecting, with sales of 1.894 billion pounds, and pre-tax profit of just 48 million pounds. At Waterstone’s full year sales of 537.5 million pounds were up 28 percent overall with the integration of Ottakar’s, but down 4.1 percent on a same-store sales basis. Operating profit continues to be slim, at 16 million pounds down considerably from 21 million pounds […]

Delay In Pearson/Harcourt Deal The UK’s Office of Fair Trading is examining Pearson’s acquisition of parts of Harcourt Education to see if it could “result in a substantial lessening of competition” in the UK education market, in which case they would refer it to the Competition Commission for further examination. The combined companies should have about a 23 percent share of the primary and secondary school market. Pearson Education executive John Fallon says, “The OFT enquiry is a matter of course in that, as Harcourt is the market leader in the UK, we fully expected that the OFT would want […]

Pearlstine Blames Cooper and Others Former Time executive Norman Pearlstine reportedly uses his book (publishing today) OFF THE RECORD to clear himself of responsibility in the Valerie Plame/Matt Cooper case, while “naming names, mouthing off about his enemies, and firing back at those who criticized his cooperation with federal prosecutors,” Radar reports. Reporter Matt Cooper “was less than perfectly discreet after he got Karl Rove on the phone on Friday, July 11, 2003, to talk about Plame,” Pearlstine says. “More than two dozen Time Inc. employees… had had access to e-mails in which Matt had named Rove as his source.” […]

San Diego Paper Plans Changes The San Diego Union Tribune will be the latest newspaper to “adjust the way we’re presenting book coverage,” according to senior editor, special sections Chris Lavin. Those changes “will both improve and broaden our coverage of books,” Lavin insists, though agent Sandy Dijkstra has circulated an e-mail warning that the paper is turning its Sunday book review section into two pages within the entertainment section after June 24 ad will cut reviews by half. Lavin says that information “is not complete or accurate” and indicates the changes will be announced to readers within the paper. […]

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 Gil Adamson’s THE OUTLANDER, in which a mysterious, desperate young woman flees […]