Following the Washington Post’s blog post about a few “worthy” books they didn’t have space to review, the St. Louis Post Dispatch has a much longer explanation of why the paper will never do what readers ask for. “We don’t review every local author’s book. We can’t – we don’t have the space, time or freelance budget. Plus, there are more books published now than ever before…. But we no longer have an Everyday section, where we also used to run feature stories about local and national authors and even book reviews. This is disappointing to everyone.” They have policies, […]
Archives for September 2008
Scholastic's Potterless Quarter
Scholastic reported first quarter sales of $285 million with a net loss from continuing operations of $44.7 million. Last year’s quarter had an additional $245 million, all but $5 million of that from Harry Potter, and recorded a gain of $3.3 million, unusual for the quarter, in which Scholastic usually has a seasonal loss with school not in session. CEO Dick Robinson says “largely reflecting a challenging market and prior year comparisons, educational technology sales were soft in the first quarter.” The numbers fell below the expectations of analysts’, who were looking for sales of $292 million and a loss […]
Will Buffett Book SNOWBALL?
A little like Warner’s launch of Jack Welch’s first book right after 9/11, Bantam faces uncertainty as their expensive authorized biography of legendary investor Warren Buffett releases next Monday in the midst of what Buffett himself calls an “economic Pearl Harbor.” Will current conditions make readers hungrier than ever for insights into one of the greatest investors ever, or leave them with no appetite for personal details about one of the world’s richest men? Time magazine appears to have had the first official look at the book, which they say “reveals that in his personal life, the Oracle of Omaha […]
Bloomsbury Buys Berg
Bloomsbury has made another addition to its growing academic division with the purchase of Oxford International Publishers Limited, which operates as Berg Publishers, for 1.8 million pounds in cash, 200,000 million pounds in stock, and up to 1 million pounds in deferred compensation based performance. Focused on books and journals for the academic student market in the fields of fashion, design and culture studies, Berg had sales 1.58 million pounds in 2007. Kathryn Earle will continue to run the company.Release
Another In-House Media Studio
Similar to the HarperCollins facility, Simon & Schuster has announced the creation of an in-house digital production studio to create multimedia content about their authors and books of the fourth floor of the company’s New York offices. Charlie Corts is their director, video production and development, recording and editing the author interviews. He has worked in digital production at Yahoo! and CBS Interactive. S&S says they expect to produce and post more than 600 pieces of multimedia content annually.
How Godin Leads His Tribe
With the release of his latest marketing book, TRIBES, “a 147-page, anecdote-filled call to readers to become leaders of a movement,” BusinessWeek profiles the energetic author and the tribe of readers who follow him–even when academicians “tut tut” at his work. “Godin’s secret to resonating with such diverse readers: He has mastered marketing in the Digital Age. His blog and books invite readers to join his e-mail list, through which he lets them know about new publications or workshops. He offers free e-books–Unleashing the Ideavirus was downloaded 2 million times before it was published. Between books, he also spreads his […]