Cemetery Dance will publish a new Stephen King novella as a trade hardcover next month, BLOCKADE BILLY. The pitch: “Even diehard baseball fans don’t know the true story of William Blakely, but in just a few weeks you’ll be holding this dark tale in your own two hands so you can read it for yourself.” King comments, “I love old-school baseball, and I also love the way people who’ve spent a lifetime in the game talk about the game. I tried to combine those things in a story of suspense. People have asked me for years when I was going […]
Archives for March 2010
Lunch Weekly for Monday, March 29
Deal Reports Just e-mail to deals@PublishersMarketplace if you aren’t using the online form linked below. Report a deal using the online form 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” $251,000 – $499,000 “major deal” $500,000 and up FICTION Debut Alethea Black’s WISE AS SERPENTS, HARMLESS AS DOVES, a story collection […]
Waterstone's Unveils New Corporate Strategy
HMV executives are meeting with City analysts today to unveil some new strategies for Waterstone’s to improve business, which HMV hopes will improve the bookstore chain’s net profit margin in the short term to 2-3% and in the medium term to 3-4%. The big changes Waterstone’s has in mind include a new e-book store to launch by May, a repositioning of range, a greater focus on local promotions, increasing non-book sales from 6% to 10% by 2013, and making the most of Borders transfer sales opportunities, as £60m of sales from Borders up for grabs in locations overlapping with Waterstone’s. […]
President Obama Catapults Prairie Lights Bookstore into Health Care Spotlight
Iowa City independent bookstore Prairie Lights was vaulted into the national spotlight yesterday after President Barack Obama’s speech about health care singled the bookstore out as an example of a small business that would benefit from tax credits that would help them cover the cost of insurance for their employees. “This is a small business that’s been offering coverage to their full-time employees for the last twenty years,” Obama said about the 32-year-old store. “Last year their premiums went up 35%, which made it a lot harder for them to offer the same coverage. Starting now, small business owners like…the […]
HMH Realigns Sales & Marketing Department; Heilemann and Halperin's 2012 Presidential Campaign Book to Penguin Press; and Other Announcements
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has announced a realignment of the Trade and Reference Group’s sales & marketing division. Laurie Brown, previously SVP of Sales, has been named Senior Vice President, Sales & Marketing, reporting to Gary Gentel. SVP, Director of Marketing Bridget Marmion, who has been at HMH for eleven years, will be leaving after company.John Heilemann and Mark Halperin‘s 2012 presidential campaign book will be published the following year by Penguin Press, which Crain’s reports paid about $5 million (after HarperCollins, which published Game Change earlier this year, dropped out of the bidding earlier this week.)Crain’s New York Former Poet […]
Agency Model Means Ingram Can't Wholesale eBooks Until New Agreements Are In Place
Another implication of the new agency model for selling ebooks hit home yesterday as Ingram Digital sent a letter from general manager Andrew Weinstein to approximately 65 retailers the company serves. He alerted them to “the very real possibility that Ingram will have to discontinue the availability of ebook titles from all publishers wishing to do business under an agency model…on or before April 1.” He indicated that “the publishers opting to do business in an agency model have left us little choice,” adding that “it has become clear that not only will Ingram need to agree to do business […]