Harlequin record a strong fourth quarter, with sales of $126 million (CA) up over 18 percent from a year ago, and ebitda of $18.4 million up more than 30 percent. Good results were made even stronger by the decline of the Canadian dollar against the US dollar, and they say that “Harlequin’s revenues, to date, […]
Archives for February 2009
People and Announcements
Agents Jill Marsal and Kevan Lyon have left the Sandra Dijkstra Agency to form the Marsal Lyon Literary Agency. Marsal was at the Dijkstra agency for eight years and practice as an attorney representing authors prior to that. Lyon spent four years at Dijkstra and worked in the wholesale and distribution side of the publishing […]
Lonely Planet to Shrink Staff by 10 Percent
With travel (and travel publishing) in a slump due to the recession, Lonely Planet is eliminating approximately 50 jobs worldwide, or about 10 percent of their workforce, with up to 40 of the layoffs in Australia. Spokesperson Adam Bennett says “it represents the decline of the guidebook market in tough times.” Some reductions will come […]
The Next Time the NYT Whines About Fact-Checking in Books
The newspaper has corrected a January piece “about women who commiserated over dating Wall Street bankers caught in the financial crisis” who claimed they had formed a support group, Dating a Banker Anonymous, with about 30 women participating. It’s just a blog, and a joke at that. If published in a book the Times would […]
Agent Weisfeld Sues Faber and Author Lowe
Jarred Weisfeld at Objective Entertainment filed suit in a New York state court yesterday against FSG’s Faber imprint and Jamie Lowe, author of DIGGING FOR DIRT: The Life and Death of ODB (aka Ol’ Dirty Bastard, aka the late Russell Jones), alleging “malicious, false, defamatory and anti-semitic statements” and seeking damags of at least $10 […]
Paid Is a Lot More Complicated than You Think–So Is the Truth
Savvy readers will note this headline is lifted from Tim O’Reilly’s wise presentation from a year ago on why “free is more complicated than you think.” There have been a number of interesting posts and discussions online recently about pricing questions, both from the publisher’s perspective (wondering about how to structure successful business models if […]