As promised, Pottermore has placed on sale French, Italian, Spanish and German editions of the Harry Potter ebooks. Former book-to-film agent Nick Harris, who left ICM recently, is starting a new company with funding from his brother-in-law Jason Traub. In the vein of Alloy Entertainment and Full Fathom Five, The Story Foundation will create books in the packager model–saying they will split proceeds 50/50 “most of the time” with authors–and aims to develop those books as film/TV projects and for “other multi-platform opportunities.” Harris tells Deadline he is already worked on five projects, based on his own ideas. “After parting […]
Archives for April 2012
McGraw-Hill Says They Are On Track To Spin Off Education Unit By Year’s End
McGraw-Hill reported first quarter earnings Tuesday morning, with some small updates on the company’s plan to spin off the education unit and save approximately $100 million in costs by the end of the year. The IRS is reported to have agreed to tax-free status for the spinoff, and McGraw-Hill will officially file certain details of the plan “in the coming weeks.” Adjusted net income from continuing operations–the measure the company would like Wall Street to focus on (which excludes one-time charges of about $33 million relating to the spinoff)–was $144 million, up 19 percent and ahead of estimates. Sales rose […]
People
Susan Canavan has been promoted to senior executive editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Alberto Rojas is joining Regnery Publishing as director of publicity on May 1. He was most recently senior director of publicity at Harper. Nathan Rostron has joined Bookish as editor, focusing on literature and fiction, mysteries and thrillers, and biography and memoir. He was most recently an assistant editor at Little, Brown. Former president and ceo of Bertelsmann Direct North America (which included the company’s book clubs) Stuart Goldfarb has joined Fullbridge at president. The Fullbridge Program is “a high-end boot camp that accelerates a successful transition between […]
Barnes & Noble Stock Jumps As Another Big Player, Jana Partners, Discloses Stake
Activist hedge fund Jana Partners declared in an SEC filing on Friday that as of April 11 they owned nearly 7 million shares of stock in Barnes & Noble, or roughly 11.7 percent of shares outstanding. The firm also holds a short-term bet of options to buy 250,000 shares at $13 share, exercisable May 18. The bookseller’s stock rose steadily during Monday trading on the news, gaining more than $2 a share (or 18.25 percent), closing at $13.41 a share, on heavy volume of almost 5 million shares. In early Tuesday trading, the stock had given back about 65 cents […]
Questions and Comments Continue on the Agency Pricing Settlement and Suits
The WSJ makes a significant discovery in the e-book pricing dispute today–they have unearthed a rare photo of Macmillan ceo John Sargent wearing a necktie, along with a three-piece formal suit. (The Joe Schildhorn/Patrick McMullan picture apparently comes from the Graham Windham Bicentennial Ball in 2006.) Perhaps too late to be of any use to his publishing constituents, the Journal also has New York Senator Chuck Schumer saying, “I feel absolutely befuddled by the lawsuit. For the Antitrust Division to step in as the big protector of Amazon doesn’t seem to make any sense from an antitrust point of view. […]
Bookselling: World Book Night; Curious George Reopens in Harvard Square; and More
World Book Night will take place Monday in the UK, US, Germany and Ireland, with thousands of volunteers set to give away more than a million books in those countries (in the US, as we reported, approximately 500,000 books from a list of 20 titles will be given away in more than 5,800 communities.) USA Today has a long overview of what’s planned all day in the US (including a celebratory “closing ceremonies” party at the Union Square Barnes & Noble), while WBN will host a similar event at London’s South Bank Centre. “We always hoped that World Book Night […]