The restoration of the bulk of New York City’s subway service and some commuter rails means much of the book trade in New York has resumed regular operations (though PATH service remains suspended, continuing the disruption in New Jersey). Macmillan, which closed all of last week while power was out in lower Manhattan, is now open, with systems, email, phone lines, and distribution centers back up. In a note to staff, ceo John Sargent said “[we] ask you all to work diligently to catch up. We will have some infrastructure problems, some systems problems, and some transportation problems. Please be […]
Archives for November 2012
A Look Back At Bertelsmann’s Last Big Merger
Once Hurricane Sandy stops being the foremost story no doubt trade publishing will return to speculation about the pending deal to create Penguin Random House. With government approval required in multiple territories (and particularly complex negotiations in places where Penguin faces litigation or investigation related to the adoption of the agency model), we thought it might be instructive to revisit the last major trade publishing merger. It was March 1998 when Bertelsmann announced their $1.4 billion deal to acquire Random House and merge it with their trade division, Bantam Doubleday Dell. News of that deal also came as a surprise […]
Awards: Coll Wins FT/Goldman Sachs Business Book Award; PW Best Books of the Year
Steve Coll has won the FT/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award for PRIVATE EMPIRE: Exxon Mobil and American Power (Penguin Press). Publishers Weekly announced their picks for the 100 best books adult books (and 40 top children’s books) of 2012. Here is their top 10 list: Building Stories, by Chris Ware (Pantheon) Bring Up the Bodies, by Hilary Mantel (Holt) The Round House, by Louise Erdrich (Harper) Happiness Is a Chemical in the Brain, by Lucia Perillo (Norton) The Devil in Silver, by Victor LaValle (Spiegel & Grau) Detroit City Is the Place to Be: The Afterlife of an […]
eNews: Flat World to Drop Free Model; Inkling Opens Trade Store
Flat World Knowledge, the disruptive open-license textbook developer that has attracted investment from both Random House and Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments, is apparently changing their fundamental model as of January 1. While the site still contains their promise to students that “all of our books are available to read in their entirety, completely free online!” a post from the National Association of College Stores says that free access to browser-based textbooks is going away. Flat World CEO Jeff Shelstad tells them, “While free access goes away, our mission to be fair and affordable remains as strong as ever.” Their all […]
Results Fall Sharply At McGraw-Hill Education on K-12 Weakness
McGraw-Hill reported third quarter earnings Friday morning, delayed from earlier in the week. Sales of $1.953 billion and net income from continuing operations of $379 million both grew, driven by increases at S&P, while the company took a $99 million charge due to the upcoming separation of their education unit. (“Approximately half” of that was attributed to actual restructuring; the rest was professional fees.) But sales fell 11 percent at the education division, to $836 million, while net profit, at $268 million, dropped 15 percent. McGraw-Hill attributed at least a third of the revenue decline to “deferred revenue associated with the migration to […]
Simon & Schuster Starts to Recover; ABA Among Those With Outages
As of Friday morning Simon & Schuster’s data services (including e-mail) have been restored and their distribution center is “fully operational,” after spending Thursday taking orders via PubEasy, PubNet, corporate EDI, and fax. A company spokesperson tells us there were “major round the clock efforts from the folks there, and our operations and IT staff to bring us back up. They will be working this weekend to get out orders delayed by the storm.” In a message posted on Tor’s Facebook page, Macmillan says the current plan is to be open for business on Monday, November 5, as Con Edison is […]