Amazon’s website book editors, led by Sara Nelson, posted their Fall Books Preview, including their picks for “fall’s 20 big books” and 10 editors’ picks of “exciting under-the-radar books,” along with a variety of recommendations across multiple categories. Four of those top titles and another two of the editors’ picks, asterisked below, can be sampled right now in our free Publishers Lunch Buzz Books 2013: Fall/Winter ebook. Their top twenty big fall books, in alphabetical order: Scott Anderson, LAWRENCE IN ARABIA Margaret Atwood, MADDADDAM Lee Child, NEVER GO BACK Robert Dallek, CAMELOT’S COURT: Inside the Kennedy White House Helen Fielding, […]
Archives for July 2013
Penguin Sales Rise 16 Percent, But Unit Loses Money On Settlements and Merger
Pearson reported sales for Penguin for the last time, covering the first six months of 2013, right up to the creation of Penguin Random House. The trade publisher had a strong start, with books from Khaled Hosseini and Sylvia Day helping to power a 16 percent overall (and 6 percent underlying) growth in sales, to £513 pounds, up from £441 a year ago (which had been a weak report for Penguin). Adjusted operating profit rose £6 million, to £28 million for the period — but that was more than wiped out by £46 million in “costs relating to the formation […]
Hachette to Close New Zealand Office
Hachette Australia and New Zealand chairman Malcolm Edwards announced that as part of a restructuring the company will close its New Zealand office at the end of 2013 and eliminate 15 jobs, including those of managing director Kevin Chapman, editorial director Warren Adler, and financial controller Rick Groufsky. Going forward Hachette New Zealand will now focus only on marketing and sales of international titles and the New Zealand backlist. In his statement Edwards said the restructuring was due to rapid ebook growth as well as the increased buying of books from overseas “at the expense of the local trade.” HarperCollins […]
People
Jeffrey Batzli has been named creative director, trade books at Rodale, effective August 1. Previously he was creative director of Barnes & Noble’s publishing business, including the Art, Photography and Production departments of the B&N Bargain trade division, and also Sterling’s trade division. At the Quarto Group, Iain MacGregor has been hired as publisher for Aurum Press. He was formerly publishing director of Collins in the UK. Aurum’s list will “reorientate back to its illustrated roots.” Writer, researcher and sex therapist Virginia Johnson, 88, died Wednesday in St. Louis. Along with longtime collaborator (and onetime husband) William Masters, Johnson “helped […]
Rinse and Repeat: Amazon Sales Grow 22 Percent, For A Small Net Loss
Amazon reported second quarter sales after the close of the market on Thursday. Results looked a lot like last quarter’s: Sales grew 22 percent to $15.7 billion, as operating income fell to $79 million (down 26 percent), with the company recorded a net loss of $7 million, or two cents a share. Those numbers were in line with the company’s broad range of guidance, but the silly stock analysts had somehow talked themselves into expect actual earnings of 5 cents of a share (and slightly higher sales). Similar to the first quarter, North American media sales of $2.173 billion were […]
Legal: Penguin Finalizes EU Settlement: Minnesota Settles with Agency Five
The European Commission formally accepted Penguin’s December 2012 settlement on ebook pricing, which essentially follows the Department of Justice settlement conditions and mirrors the “commitments” already made in Europe by the other four settling publishers and Apple. The Commission said in a statement that “after a market test” it “is satisfied that the commitments offered by Penguin remedy the competition concerns it had identified.” (Our standard reminder: The European settlement only affects countries that allow the discounting of ebooks in the first place — so it applies principally to the UK.) Separately, with the final state settlements with Penguin and […]