Workman Publishing’s director of children’s publishing, Raquel Jaramillo — who writes as R.J. Palacio and authored the bestseller WONDER — will leave that position on October 25 “to devote more time to writing.” She will rejoin Workman in February 2014 as editor-at-large, reporting to editor-in-chief and acting publisher Susan Bolotin. “Jaramillo will complete several projects that are currently under contract and will continue to acquire high-concept, novelty gift books and kits, for both the children’s and adult lists.” Bolotin notes in the announcement, “Everyone at Workman is enormously excited by Raquel’s success and proud of the work she’s done for […]
Archives for July 2013
Super Summer Searching
We mentioned back in May the beta introduction of our long-in-the-making “Super Search” feature at PublishersMarketplace.com, building a powerful one-stop search engine that looks across multiple PM databases and features. We have ramped up the development and rollout since then, and now Super Search is really beginning to fulfill our aspirations. The biggest addition was the integration of all Publishers Lunch Deluxe news posts as well as the hundreds of thousands of news highlights and links stored in the PL Automat (a secret publishing news search engine in its own right). So now one search provides fast matches across Contacts, […]
Pinkus Seeks to Dismiss Latest McIntosh & Otis Suit
Though Samuel Pinkus has yet to respond to Harper Lee’s copyright lawsuit filed last May, he did file a motion to dismiss McIntosh & Otis’s suit from June, alleging he deliberately moved money from one shell company to another to avoid paying the agency more than $850,000. In his motion Pinkus called M&O’s suit a “work of fiction” that is “replete with misleading plot holes” and “wholesale cribbing from the complaint of another party’s pending action” (referring to Lee’s Federal suit). On the matter of whether Pinkus is the alter ego of Veritas Media, and is thus liable to pay that […]
People, Etc.
Group communications director for HarperCollins UK and International Siobhan Kenny is leaving the company after six years, with her last day after the Frankfurt Book Fair in October. “After almost six amazing years at HC, it is time for me to move on,” Kenny said in the announcement. “Publishing is always a fascinating business, but these last few years have been really transformational and I have learnt a huge amount being part of a business in rapid transition.” At Public Affairs, Lindsay Fradkoff has been promoted to associate director of marketing, and Emily Lavelle moves up to publicity manager. At NetGalley, […]
Amazon Matches Overstock Discounts; Adds Thousands of Warehouse Jobs
Things are changing quickly this summer in once-staid book publishing. It was early this month that the NYT warned America that “as competition wanes, Amazon cuts back discounts” on books. Based on penetrating “anecdotal and fragmentary” evidence, the newspaper convinced average Americans that Amazon was cutting back on book discounts — particularly from smaller and academic publishers — daring to charge only a little less than list price, as part of their Plot to Destroy Publishing. Then last Thursday, Overstock.com put out a press release announcing “a limited time” promotion, promising “we’ve priced our books at least 10-percent below Amazon.com’s […]
Barnes & Noble Increases Historical Earnings, Pays Lynch Severance, and Postpones Nook International Rollout
Barnes & Noble filed restated historical financial statements with the SEC after concluding that they had “overstated certain accruals for the periods prior to April 27, 2013, as a result of inadequate controls over the accrual reconciliation process at its distribution centers.” The company made a few other historical restatements as well. The primary effect was to increase their reportable earnings from the past three years–so the 2012 net loss got $4 million smaller; the 2011 loss got $5 million smaller; and the 2010 earnings rose $6 million. With those corrections, the company also filed their delayed annual report with […]