Reed’s rather poorly kept secret of the past couple of months–that they have a buyer for their two library publications–became public this morning, with the announcement that Media Source has acquired Library Journal and School Library Journal. Long known for the Junior Library Guild, Media Source bought The Horn Book, Inc. in early 2009. Media Source ceo Randall Asmo says the magazines “deserve a corporate home focused on libraries.” Editor-in-chief Brian Kenney and publisher Ron Shank will remain in their roles with the magazines–which means that they will relinquish their additional responsibilities for Publishers Weekly, which is not included in […]
Archives for March 2010
Random House Is Developing Video Games
The Random House Publishing Group has set up a unit to develop video games, first reported in WSJ and then confirmed in a press release, run by director of creative development Keith Clayton and director of business development Mikita Labanok, who report to Del Rey/Spectra publisher Scott Shannon. The announcement says the unit will create “original transmedia intellectual property–story content that can be accessed through multiple media sources including video games, social networks on the web, mobile platforms, in print and on film–that will be developed and marketed in partnerships with other media companies.The group will also offer editorial services […]
Weak Pound Boosts Penguin Sales, As Margin Declines
Nothing helps the performance of Penguin and its parent company Pearson like a weak British pound, particularly since they get 60 percent of their sales from the US. For fiscal 2009 that benefit is stark, particularly for Penguin, where currency exchange made up for flat sales and declining margins. Sales at Penguin were 1.002 billion pounds, an 11 percent increase over last year’s 903 million pounds, though the gains and then some were entirely due to currency. The company admits that foreign exchange contributed 109 million pounds; on a constant-exchange-rate basis sales fell 1 percent, and “underlying” sales were down […]
Announcements
David Patterson has left Holt, where he was an editor, and starts today at Foundry Literary + Media as an agent. Irish bookselling chain Hughes & Hughes declared bankruptcy. Ulster Bank appointed David Carson of Deloitte as receiver. The company blamed a variety of factors, from reduced air traffic which suppressed business at its successful airport bookstores to higher rents and the internet.Irish Times Gordon Wood won the American History Book Prize for Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815, which includes the title of American Historian Laureate. Mexican author and guerrilla movement scholar Carlos Montemayor, 62, […]