Credit insurer Euler Hermes told publishers on October 17 that it was reducing its cover for vendors of Borders in the US to zero. The Bookseller, which has seen the document, reports that it “said the move is related to Borders Group’s continuing losses.” Recently, we’ve heard of major US publishers looking anew at whether to take out their own credit insurance policies to cover their inventory at Borders in the event of a bankruptcy. The policies can be very expensive, and in informal polling we’ve heard of one big six publisher that did take out a policy and one […]
Archives for November 2008
Layoffs at Rodale
The company is cutting approximately 10 percent of its staff, comprising 111 employees in all. The Allentown Morning Call says that 73 of the cuts will come from their Emmaus headquarters; the remaining 38 are in New York and regional sales offices. Rodale says in a release it is “eliminating or consolidating positions in several of its divisions, including operations, IT, customer service and some publishing departments in order to shift resources toward its highest growth potential activities.” As the NY Post notes, “the job cuts come after the privately held company sought unsuccessfully to find a strategic partner to […]
Amazon's Best of 2008
Amazon has picked their top 100 books for the year. Here’s the first part of the list: 1. The Northern Clemency, Philip Hensher 2. Hurry Down Sunshine, Michael Greenberg3. Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America, Rick Perlstein 4. The Forever War, Dexter Filkins5. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle: A Novel, David Wroblewski 6. The Likeness: A Novel, Tana French 7. Serena: A Novel, Ron Rash 8. So Brave, Young and Handsome: A Novel, Leif Enger 9. The Lazarus Project, Aleksandar Hemon 10. […]
Graywolf's NBA Paperback Sale
The Observer looks at why Graywolf decided to sell paperback rights to Salvatore Scibona’s National Book Award-nominated novel THE END to Riverhead (as reported on our Deals page last week). Director of publicity Mary Matze says, “We felt like if he doesn’t win, then Riverhead is probably going to be the best home for him and for this book in the long term, and if he does win, we still have a good deal worked out with Riverhead, though of course it would have been more beneficial for us to keep the paperback rights. Even in that case, a publisher […]
People
Reed Elsevier has named Ian Smith as ceo-designate as of January 1, preparing to take over when Crispin Davis retires next March. Smith is the former head of homebuilder Taylor Woodrow. Amanda Tobier has joined Little, Brown as marketing manager. She was most recently marketing director for Avery and Viking Studio. She’s also worked in the marketing departments at Hyperion and Harper Perennial, and was a frontlist buyer at Third Place Books for five years. Columbia University Press has hired Julia Kushnirsky as art director. Most recently she has been a freelance art director for Random House and Grand Central […]
Another eReader for the UK
The BeBook has launched in the UK, selling for 230 pounds, and provided with 150 free books pre-loaded on to the device.ReleaseSale offering, with picture