Sales and Profits Both Fall at Harlequin Harlequin parent Torstar reported results for their fiscal first quarter, with book sales falling 12 percent to $110 million (CA), with operating profit was down 15 percent to $16 million. The company says the drops were smaller “excluding the impact of foreign exchange,” with North American retail sales flat, but the main reason cited is “the strong publishing schedule a year ago.” (But they also consider the big profit drop a “slight decline.”) They note: “We continue to expect modest growth from Harlequin for the year unless there is a major economic slowdown […]
Archives for April 2008
Lunch for Tuesday, April 29
Second Drop for S&S CBS reported quarterly results this morning, with sales at Simon & Schuster dropping for the second consecutive quarter, down 12 percent to $201.6 million, with operating income down 32 percent to $14.6 million. The company says “best-selling titles… did not match contributions from prior year titles” (which is exactly what they said last quarter). CEO Carolyn Reidy says that “if it weren’t for the comparison to last year, I’d say we had a darn good quarter. (THE SECRET, still on bestseller lists though without the same velocity as a year ago, comprised $53 million of worldwide […]
Lunch for Monday April 28
LAT Winners, and Festival The LAT Festival of Books began Friday night with the naming of the LAT Book Prize winners in 10 categories. Among the honorees: Fiction: Andrew O’Hagan, Be Near Me First Fiction: Dinaw Mengestu, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears Full list of winners The LAT’s book blog has multiple posts on various festival events. Jacket Copy In other awards news, and in transition to the item below, the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers’ Nebula Awards were also announced on Saturday, with Michael Chabon winning for his novel THE YIDDISH POLICEMAN’S UNION. Audible Highlights Sci-Fi Audible has […]
Lunch Weekly for Monday, April 28
Deal News 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 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” […]
Lunch for Friday, April 25
Angel to Lead (and Expand) Faber in US As was being murmured in the halls at the London Book Fair, Fourth Estate editorial director Mitzi Angel will relocate to New York to become publisher of Faber, Inc. in the US as part of an initiative to expand that imprint “with its own singular identity” as well as build a program of joint world English acquisitions with Faber and Faber the UK. (Originally established as the US branch of the British Faber and Faber, a majority interest in the operation was sold to Farrar, Straus in 1998.) But FSG will continue […]
Lunch for Thursday, April 24
Another Jump for Amazon Even with the bar set pretty high, Amazon met or exceeded analysts’ consensus expectations with first quarter sales of $4.13 billion, up 37 percent, and net income of $143 million, up 30 percent from a year ago. Yet the company’s earnings guidance for the next quarter stayed the same, even as they foresee another strong rise in sales of between 34 percent and 41 percent. That renews investor concerns about the company’s margins and is taking the stock down today after a sharp run-up over the past two months. Of course publishers only care about what […]