Suzanne Collins and Lee Child are the newest authors to sell over a million Kindle editions of their works. Collins is the first children’s author to achieve the milestone. They join Stieg Larsson, James Patterson, Nora Roberts and Charlaine Harris. Release Otto Penzler intends to publish 250 ebooks through a new MysteriousPress.com venture, primarily reissues of classic mysteries not yet available electronically. The line will also publish one new title a month, including a novella by James Grady, a follow-up to Six Days of the Condor. MysteriousPress.com will use Open Road for distribution and marketing, Crain’s NY reports. Crains
Archives for June 2011
Books & Books and Joseph-Beth Both Target Smaller Stores As Growth Possibility
Two different pieces look at how independent store groups Books & Books and the newly debt-free Joseph-Beth are replacing lost book sales with other business lines. Both groups are looking at smaller-format stores as a potential route to expansion as well. The Miami Herald has a lengthy piece on Mitchell Kaplan and his evolving strategy for Books & Books. Kaplan has worked hard to determine the lasting value of what he had built, and use it generate more revenue: “Instead of feeling victimized by what was happening in the marketplace, I decided to look at the value we’ve built up […]
People: Another Borders Executive Quits
On Friday, Borders announced via an SEC filing that evp and chief merchandising officer Michele Cloutier resigned on Thursday, June 2. In other Borders news, federal bankruptcy court approved its motion to reject its Seattle’s Best Coffee contract as of July 31. SBC can stop shipping goods and providing services on June 30. Court filing Literary agent Weronika Janczuk has joined Lynn C. Franklin Associates, where she will represent a range of adult literary and commercial fiction, non-fiction, and YA. Janczuk has been at D4EO Literary Agency.
People, Etc.
At Random House, Milena Alberti has been named vp and director of corporate development and strategy for the entire compay, while Ranjana Wingender has been promoted to vp business development for the Crown Publishing Group, a new divisional position. Josephine Hart, the poetry promoter and bestselling author of six novels including DAMAGE and THE TRUTH ABOUT LOVE, died Thursday of a rare form of ovarian cancer. She was 67. Guardian Obit Wayne Greenhaw, the journalist and author of 22 novels, died May 31 following complications from open-heart surgery at the University of Alabama-Birmingham hospital. He was 71. His most recent […]
Briefs: EBSCO and H.W. Wilson to Merge; Mirasol Reader is Dead; and More
EBSCO and H.W. Wilson have merged in a deal that combines the two publishing companies’ operations with the intended goal of improving services for libraries. Wilson president and ceo Harry Regan said in a statement: “EBSCO and H.W. Wilson have been engaged as business partners for a number of years and are now officially operating as one. The result will be a broader and deeper range of products and services for the library reference community with significantly added value. Both companies have had separate, distinctive histories, but have always shared a common commitment for the highest order of customer satisfaction.” […]
Bookselling: Stores Closing in Pacific Palisades and Kentucky; Transforming a Borders Store Into an Arts Festival; and More
Village Books in Pacific Palisades, CA, will close on June 30 after almost 14 years in business. Owner Katie O’Laughlin said in a statement that the store “has struggled financially for the past 10 years, but I was able to somehow make it work. Unfortunately, recent changes in the book business have made it impossible to continue operating the store in its present form.” Sales since January have “dropped dramatically” as well. Palisades Post A new 4,000 square-foot Books-A-Million store will open in the Peachtree Mall in Columbus, GA, replacing a Waldenbooks that closed early last year. BAMM closed a […]