Canada’s dominant bookseller Indigo announced a variety of new plans. They will redesign many of their superstores to feature a variety of “store within a store” boutiques, such as Indigo Kids, Indigo Tech and Indigo Home. In 2014, they will begin selling Apple products in 40 of their stores. More vaguely still — but provocative — cheif executive Heather Reisman said they have plans to open bookstores outside of Canada in 2 years, “though she declined to say which markets the retailer is considering.” Similarly to Barnes & Noble (though Indigo headed in this direction earlier), “the bookseller has been […]
Archives for June 2013
People, Etc.: Legato Announces 20 Clients
The new distribution “affiliate” of Publishers Group West run by Mark Suchomel, Legato Publishers Group, announced 20 publishers that have signed on as clients. All will start with Legato on January 1, 2014, except for Buffalo Media Works, which will use Legao to sell and distribute their books immediately. All 20 also have been clients of IPG, where Suchomel worked for 27 years until he was dismissed in March. Legato has said they aim to take on 30 to 40 publisher clients over the next two to three years. Robin Desser is the latest recipient of The Center for Fiction’s […]
Harper to Shift Operations Jobs to New Jersey
HarperCollins evp, operations and technology Larry Nevins announced internally yesterday a “significant change” with “the creation of a new central operations hub” in South Brunswick, NJ in a facility shared with Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal. The new hub will comprise inventory management, production, ETM and e-book processing, as well as their data center and telephone infrastructure. VP of production and creative operations Tracey Menzies “will transition and lead operations at the new location as the central hub is developed.” That extensive change means they company is “eliminating the positions in New York City and hiring for new […]
People
Candice Vallimont recently joined Chronicle Books as distribution account client manager. Previously she was a product manager at Hachette New Zealand. In the UK, Laura Hassan has been named editorial director of Guardian Faber, the new nonfiction imprint created by Faber and the newspaper, effective August 5. She is currently editorial director at Vintage Classics UK. At Harlequin, Beth Attwood will join the company as managing editor coordinator, New York/Toronto on July 2. In the UK, Pippa Roscoe has been promoted to acting assistant editor, Modern/Presents; Laurie Johnson has been promoted to assistant editor; and Megan Haslam has been promoted […]
Barnes & Noble Has Big Declines At Retail Stores and Nook; Takes $151 Million Charge and Will “Partner” On Color Tablets
Barnes & Noble reported another poor quarter to end fiscal 2013: Sales of $1.28 billion were down 7.4 percent from $1.38 billion a year ago, and the net loss doubled to $118.6 million, or $2.11 per share. Both results were far worse than analysts had forecast (as we covered yesterday). Results “were adversely impacted by Nook inventory charges”–they took $133 million in inventory charges in the fourth quarter on device markdowns and a goodwill impairment charge of $18.3 million in Nook selling and administrative expenses “as recurring losses have led to revisions in its strategic plans.” Even with the discounting, the […]
Penguin Asks Judge Cote to Dismiss Class Action-Seeking Lawsuit Against Author Solutions
Just one day after wrapping up the Apple ebook price fixing trial, Judge Cote is in the midst of a different publishing industry-related lawsuit. Last Friday Penguin filed a motion to dismiss a class action-seeking lawsuit filed on April 26 by three authors against Author Solutions, which Penguin acquired in July 2012. In the motion, Penguin alleges the lawsuit from three ASI customers — Jodi Foster, Kelvin James, and Terry Hardy — was a “misguided attempt to make a federal class action out of a series of gripes by two of them about alleged typographical and formatting errors and supposed […]