Eerdmans has hired Lil Copan as senior acquisitions editor, general trade. She was at Abingdon Press most recently. A group of senior management and board members have joined in a management buyout of the Peter Lang Academic Publishing Group from the Peter Lang Children’s Trust. The deal is expected to close by mid-2015. The new management team comprises Claude Béglé as chairman of the board, Kelly Shergill as CEO and deputy chairman, Vanessa Weber as CFO and Abdurahman Kaymaz as head of warehouse and logistics. Stuart Wilkins, who led the process on behalf of the Trust, said in the announcement: “The Trust Board recognized that their […]
Archives for March 2015
Overlooked NBA Authors Do Well At NBCC Awards
The National Book Critics Circle awards were presented Thursday night, and four authors who were nominated for (but did not win) National Book Awards won NBCC honors: Fiction Marilynne Robinson, Lila (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) Autobiography Roz Chast, Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? (Bloomsbury) Biography John Lahr, Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh (Norton) Poetry Claudia Rankine, Citizen: An American Lyric (Graywolf) The two additional awards went to: Criticism Ellen Willis, The Essential Ellen Willis, edited by Nona Willis Aronowitz (University of Minnesota Press) Nonfiction David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation […]
People: Terry Pratchett Dies, and More
Terry Pratchett, 66, author of more than 70 books including the Discworld series, died Thursday morning from complications of Alzheimer’s disease, which he was diagnosed with in 2007. Transworld managing director Larry Finlay said in a statement: “I was deeply saddened to learn that Sir Terry Pratchett has died. The world has lost one of its brightest, sharpest minds. In over 70 books, Terry enriched the planet like few before him. As all who read him know, Discworld was his vehicle to satirize this world: he did so brilliantly, with great skill, enormous humour and constant invention. Terry faced his […]
People, Etc.
The NYT reports that Alabama’s Human Resources Department has been investigating a complaint of possible elder abuse in connection with the planned publication of Harper Lee’s Go Set A Watchman. They are doing so with the assistance of the Alabama Securities Commission. Investigators are said to have interviewed Lee, along with a number of her friends and employees at the assisted living facility where she lives. Sara Weiss will join Ballantine Bantam Dell as senior editor, reporting to Jennifer Tung. Previously she was an editor at Grand Central. Former California congressman George Miller will join Cengage Learning as senior education advisor, providing […]
Lagardere’s Profit Falls Along with Sales
Having already reported sales for 2014 a month ago, in the European style Lagardere followed up on Wednesday afternoon with a full accounting of their profits for the year as well. On those sales of €2.004 million (down 3 percent), recurring EBIT fell further, down €26 million or 12 percent to €197 million. EBIT, after non-recurring/non-operating items, declined €23 million to €169 million. Despite the weaker year, publishing still accounts for over half of parent company Lagardere’s total earnings (but 28 percent of sales). Per our previous estimates, Hachette Book Group in the US and Canada comprised 24 percent of publishing sales, […]
2014 In Context: Known Gains Are Sparse
Until it’s revised a year from now, we have to work with the AAP’s report of a 4 percent gain (or $258 million) in trade sales during 2014, to $6.631 billion. As noted in our full report, all of the gains and then some — $325 million in all — came from strong children’s/YA sales, which rose $325 million. With all but one major publisher having reported individual results for 2014, we prepared a summary version of how those industry-wide results look on a publisher-by-publisher basis. Notably, the publisher we are still waiting on is the largest: Penguin Random House, which claimed a […]