As you know, there’s a bull market for overblown startups claiming to reinvent publishing. NetMinds is the latest of those to make a media tour, with a press release timed in conjunction with today’s TOC conference and their first book set for publication in March (though the company was founded in 2011 and has announced itself previously). On the one hand, the company is somewhere between harmless and hilarious: check out their web site. Would you want to engage with a publishing enterprise that has so much trouble explaining what it does, while wrapping it in so many layers of […]
Archives for February 2013
People, Etc.
Dawn Davis will join the Atria Publishing Group on April 1 as vp, publisher of a new yet-to-be-named imprint, reporting to Judith Curr. Davis was most recently publisher at Amistad. “Dawn Davis has impeccable credentials, great taste, and a discerning eye that enables her to discover unexpected books and unknown authors that go on to receive the highest praise and find wide audiences” Curr said in the announcement. “That she will now be bringing her ample talents to Atria and Simon & Schuster is a boon for us and readers everywhere.” Hannah Rahill will join Ten Speed Press as vp, […]
Barnes & Noble Warns of Bigger Nook Loss, and Lower Sales than Projected
Barnes & Noble continues to suffer–but the pain is coming from their shiny new growth business that isn’t really growing that much. The company said after the close of the market on Wednesday that “based on current forecasts” it “now expects its fiscal year 2013 Nook segment EBITDA loss to be greater than it was in fiscal 2012 and expects fiscal year 2013 Nook Media revenues to be less than $3 billion.” Just over a month ago, when reporting lower than expected Nook sales, BN had reduced sales expectations for Nook Media (which combines Nook and BN College) to “approximately […]
People, Etc.
Poets & Writers has named Steve Berry, Rigoberto González, and Judith Kelman as the recipients of their annual Writers for Writers Awards. Berry is honored for his dedication to historic preservation of sites of literary importance; Kelman for founding Visible Ink, a writing program at Memorial Sloan Kettering; and González for championing Latina/o writers. Chuck Adams at Algonquin Books will receive their editor’s award and Leonard Riggio will be honored with the organization’s first leadership award “for his transformational impact on the field.” The awards will presented at their annual gala on March 18. Neil Gaiman will give a keynote speech at the London Book Fair’s Digital Minds Conference. Margaret Atwood, Jonathan […]
Corporate: DailyLit “Joins Forces” With Plympton: Rowman & Littlefield Reorganization
DailyLit, founded in 2006, is “joining forces” with Plympton, the original serial fiction start-up created by Jennifer 8. Lee and Yael Goldstein Love. Plympton is taking over DailyLit and aims to expand it and “bring the DailyLit experience up-to-date” for mobile devices and tablets. DailyLit founders Susan Danziger and her husband Albert Wenger (a partner at Union Square Ventures) are now investors and advisors to the combined company. DailyLit has digitally serialized almost 1,000 titles. Rowman & Littlefield reports that their book publishing sales for 2012 were $50 million, up 6 percent from 2011, while their distribution businesses NBN and […]
McGraw-Hill Education Records $406 Million Loss On Writedowns In Advance of Sale
McGraw Hill reported results for the fourth quarter and full year Tuesday morning, providing further details on the sale of its education division to Apollo Global Management (which the company expects to close by the end of the first quarter of 2013.) Now counted one the side as “discontinued operations,” the Education division recorded a net loss of $406 million for the quarter and $239 million for the year. Adjusted net income from discontinued operations for the fourth quarter and full year were $9 million and $196 million, respectively. The losses were driven by a big writedown against the K-12 […]