Two UK bookstore chains reported encouraging holiday sales. Waterstones says print book sales were up 5 percent in December, and Foyles said same-store book sales were up 11 percent for the holiday. With 290 stores, Waterstones now expects to open a dozen or more new stores during 2015. Both booksellers also reported weak sales for ereading devices — which should hardly be a surprise, as most consumers have moved on tablets and ereading loyalists are most likely to buy directly from their platform of choice rather than stumbling on devices through a third party. Waterstones said Kindle device sales “disappeared to […]
Archives for January 2015
People, Etc.
Candlewick announced a number of recent promotions. Liz Bicknell has been promoted to evp, executive editorial director and associate publisher, while also taking on responsibility as group trade publishing director, Walker Books Australia. Mary Lee Donovan has added the title of director of editorial operations to her current title of editorial director, while Sarah Ketchersid moves up to senior executive editor. Finally, both Kate Fletcher and Andrea Tompa have been promoted to senior editor. At Europa Editions, co-publisher Kent Carroll is transitioning to the role of publisher-at-large, where he will continue to focus on editing and bringing new authors in […]
Launching with Kids, Then the World
Just as children’s and YA sales led the industry last year, next week’s big conferences start with our one-day Publishers Launch Kids conference, the opening event of Digital Book World, on January 13. For the fourth year in a row, Launch Kids is the biggest professional event specifically for children’s book publishers (and children’s content digitalists). Once again the program is overstuffed with more than 30 speakers from across the children’s content world — from top publishers (Susan Katz at Harper Children’s; Barbara Marcus at Random House Children’s; Suzanne Murphy at Disney; Dominique Raccah at Sourcebooks), major educational platforms (Chris Palma […]
The Final Best of the Best Books of 2014
All the “best of 2014” lists are finished and so we are ready to note for the record our final aggregation of the very Best Books of 2014. Anthony Doerr’s novel remains at the top as the consensus “book of the year,” with works of fiction claiming 7 of the top 10 slots overall. Our final lists are quite similar to the last installment from December, though Lily King’s Euphoria rose on the fiction chart and Leslie Jamison’s essays moved up on our nonfiction chart. As in the past, our final lists also note the editors and agents who worked on […]
Recorded Books Acquires Tantor Media
Recorded Books has acquired audio publisher Tantor Media, with a catalog of approximately 5,000 titles. Sale terms were not officially disclosed but the NYT reports the price was “about $25 million.” Private equity firm Wasserstein & Co. acquired Recorded Books from Haights Cross Communications a little less than a year ago, and then they bought HighBridge Audio from Workman Publishing in April, which was integrated into Recorded Books. Wasserstein co-managing partner Anup Bagaria tells the NYT, “We’ve taken a sleepy business and really accelerated growth” through acquisitions and organic improvements. Tantor will continue to operate out of its current Old Saybrook, CT facility. Jones Day […]
People, Etc.
Brant Rumble will join Blue Rider Press as senior editor on February 2. Previously he was senior editor at Scribner. Ingram Content Group chief operating officer Shawn Morin has been given the additional title and responsibilities of president. CEO John Ingram syas in the announcement: “Shawn Morin has provided great leadership for our team at Ingram, especially over the past two years. As much as we’re a distribution business, we’re also a technology business. Shawn is a businessman who is very knowledgeable and fluent in technology, which enables everything we do.” Lucas Hunt has joined Orchard Literary, a literary agency spinoff of PR […]