Dara La Porte is leaving Politics and Prose, where she has managed the children’s and teen’s department for the past 11, to co-direct Literacy and Prose, a non-profit that brings authors and illustrators to schools. Transworld associate publicity director Laura Sherlock is leaving the company in order to “spend more time with her young family.” Her last day is June 8. Aflame Books, which devoted itself to publishing fiction in translation since, announced on its website last week that it ” has ceased trading and will no longer publish books,” after five years in business. They add, “we thank […]
Archives for March 2011
Bookselling: Joseph-Beth Up for Sale; ABA Expands Board; New Indies; And More
With creditors nipping at Joseph-Beth‘s heels, wondering how the independent bookselling chain will emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy, a new filing this week provided some more concrete answers – which demonstrates an outside savior appears to be the best hope. After initially closing four stores, Joseph-Beth will close a fifth store in Fredericksburg, VA before the end of June. The company is also putting itself up for sale, saying that it can’t come up with a reorganization plan that satisfies lenders, creditors and the bankruptcy court. “In the exercise of their business judgment, and to maximize the return to the […]
Borders Will Close 28 More Stores; Mortgage Defaults for Agree Realty
After a week of warning that it may close as many as 75 stores, the final tally for this newest round of store closures turns out to be just over a third of that initial projection. The 28 additional stores will close by late May; 7 are based in California and 2 each in Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Washington State. Updated Borders store closure list The collateral damage also continues for Agree Realty, the publicly-traded company who rented more than 20 percent of its total real estate portfolio to Borders. Previously they disclosed a significant writedown of more […]
People, Etc.
At Random House UK division Cornerstone, Heinemann Jason Arthur has been appointed publisher, while Caroline Gascoigne, formerly Hutchinson publishing director, has been appointed to the newly-created role of publisher at large. Harvard Common Press titles will be distributed by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt as of June 1. Bi Feiyu has won the Man Asian Literary Prize for his novel Three Sisters (HMH)Release Julian Barnes has won the David Cohen Prize for lifetime achievement in literature. Toronto mystery bookshop Sleuth of Baker Street will be leaving its longtime location on Bayview Avenue for a smaller location on 907 Milwood Road starting on March 19. Quill […]
Stop?: Barnes & Noble Tries to Find Its Level
The bad week for Barnes & Noble’s stock continued yesterday, with another drop of almost 4 percent on heavy volume, to close below $10 a share for the first time. The continuing fall was sufficient to finally attract the notice of the WSJ’s Heard on the Street column. They’d still like to see BN close more stores, and blame Len Riggio at least in part for taking more cash in the 2009 merger of BN College than the entire combined company is worth in today’s market. (The company has a current market cap of approximately $550 million.) The stock opened […]
Pop: AAP eBook Sales Comprise 23.5 Percent of All January Trade, Outpacing Hardcover and Mass Market Books for First Time
The much-anticipated January 2011 AAP ebook sales report shows the spike that many expected: among the 14 publishers who contribute data, wholesale ebook sales jumped to a new all-time high of $69.9 million. As a result, ebooks comprised 23.5 percent of all trade book sales for the month. (In December, ebook sales of $49.5 million comprised just under 8 percent of trade sales.) That big increase is consistent with the surge of new ereading devices and a traditionally slow month for new print book shipments–and is in step with reports from Sourcebooks that digital sales hit 35 percent in January, […]