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 Historian, broadcaster, author of BECOMING QUEEN and consultant on the recent […]
Archives for April 2010
Portfolio Expands Across the Commonwealth
Penguin will roll out its Portfolio business imprint in the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa this fall, under the name Portfolio Penguin. (The line already has a presence in India.) Viking UK editorial director Joel Rickett will add responsibility for the UK list, and Richard Lennon joins the UK office as communications manager. (He was sales director for Dow Jones Consumer Media.) Portfolio founder and publisher Adrian Zackheim says, “With the addition of the Portfolio Penguin international imprint, we will be able to greatly expand our worldwide offerings in the business category, while complementing the business […]
People
The UK’s Felicity Bryan has restructured to form Felicity Bryan Associates, owned by Bryan, Catherine Clarke and Caroline Wood. Clarke will serve as managing director and Wood joins the board as a director, as Bryan chairs the board and continues to work with her authors. Sally Holloway continues at the agency as an associate agent. Pablo Defendini is leaving Tor.com to join Open Road as interactive producer. New members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ main body include authors Marilynne Robinson, Francine Prose, Thomas McGuane and Richard Powers. Hachette Book Group will sell and distribute Marvel‘s books to […]
Bookselling: New Store, Old Story
Half Price Books will open their second Oklahoma City-area story in August.News OK Separately, former distributor Don Linn rants over last week’s non-story that “publishers are squeezing booksellers on credit.” He writes: “while you may feel like you ‘deserve’ better credit terms than others and that your credit risk is somehow different from some other credit risk, it’s just not true. Publishers and distributors already act as the bank with relatively generous terms and, in case you haven’t noticed, you get to return anything you choose to at anytime for full credit forever. So spare me the whining about credit, […]
2011 Federal Budget Would Strip Funding for Reading is Fundamental
The Department of Education has proposed stripping the independent non-profit Reading Is Fundamental of their federal grant–which comprises 75 percent of their annual revenues. The DOE’s plan is that RIF and the National Writing Project–also set to lose funding–would compete for funds on a state-by-state basis. Department spokesman Dave Thomas says “this proposed approach will give state education agencies and local education agencies greater flexibility to focus on their areas of greatest need and will be more effective than the narrow categorical programs.” Or it will mean that the organization spends a big chunk of its resources on administration and […]
iBookstore Updates and More Stats
Steve Jobs announced yesterday that iPad sales had risen to at least 450,000 units, and iBookstore downloads (not sales, as the paper of record had it) reached 600,000 books. Jobs also presented Apple’s new iPhone OS 4, available this summer. As hoped for, the company will bring the iBookstore and iBooks to iPhones and iPod Touches as part of the updated operating system. Like other reader apps, that move will allow consumers to read (and sync) their iBooks across iPhones, iPod Touches and iPads.