For a while now Bernstein Research has been among the leaders of analysts calling for Pearson to sell off Penguin. In their facile reasoning, they’ve assumed that the trade publisher would be easy to sell at a premium price even though they believe it’s a laggard next to Pearson’s other assets. In a new report, they have concluded that “Pearson’s marriage to Penguin may have to last longer, just as the benefits of the relationship increasingly look questionable.” Again without any real foundation, they have decided that the Department of Justice’s ebook pricing investigation means that a potential sale of […]
Archives for May 2012
BEA Is Really Coming
Per tradition, I waited until yesterday to register for BEA, so I’m imagining a number of others are still making arrangements for the convention, which is now less than two weeks away. To help your preparations, Publishing Trends has produced a handy one-page overview of the always-complex schedule and related events, with lots of embedded links. We’ll be sharing our annual party planner next week, so if you want your celebration known, make sure you’ve notified us. Though we often get a lot of last-minute sign-ups, we are running very low on seats for our packed, 16-session Publishers Launch BEA Conference on Monday […]
Bookselling: Kepler Aims For $1 Million in Fundraising; Easons Plans Own eReader; and More
Kepler’s 2020, the non-profit organization that is now the de facto owners of the Menlo Park bookstore after longtime owner Clark Kepler retired, has begun a fundraising drive to raise more than $1 million by the end of the summer. (Nearly $400,000 has already been promised by prominent individuals in Silicon Valley.) But first they have to finish negotiating down what had been almost $1 million in debt. The new funds are designed as “start-up capital for the new Kepler’s” rather than cash to pay off the old Kepler’s bills. “The good news is that most of the publishers were willing […]
HBG App Drives Facebook Book Sampling
For a while now Hachette Book Group has been talking at conferences about their internal work to harness Facebook as a way for readers to sample and share books. Wednesday the company formally launched their ChapterShare Facebook app, which makes good on that promise. The app lets authors themselves as well as HBG staff post chapters onto Facebook pages from forthcoming books. Facebook friends can read and share the samples, as well as pre-order the titles. The first two excerpts are opening chapters from James Patterson’s forthcoming novel NYPD Red (October 8) and Michael Connelly’s The Black Box (November 26). […]
Corporate: Macmillan New Ventures Buys EBI; Gallimard Last and Only Bidder for Flammarion
The sale of French publisher Flammarion by RCS appears to be down to a single contender, Les Echos reported, after bidding partners Albin Michel and Chequers Capital dropped out when they refused to increase their offer. The lone publishing house still in contention to buy Flammarion is Gallimard, which reportedly is working to raise their original offer of approximately 200 million euros. The RCS board of directors, which waffled its way into the sale offer in the first place, has indicated it might cancel the sale if the offer is not improved sufficiently–which is about the only tool available to them […]
Sales Up, Losses Slimmer in Books-A-Million’s First Quarter
Books-A-Million reported first quarter earnings for the period ended April 28, and sales rose–up 10.5 percent (or $10.7 million)–to $113.1 million compared to a year ago, due to the expanded store base that now comprises 255 outlets. (Sales rose by about the same amount in the previous quarter as well.) It was also an easy comparison to what was a terrible first quarter a year ago, when sales had dropped from $117 million in early 2010. The company recorded a net loss of $1.9 million for the quarter, an improvement from the $3.4 million in losses a year ago (but […]