Bloomsbury reported results for their fiscal year ending February 28, rebounding from a weak first half to finish just above even: Sales of £111.1 million were up £1.6 million (due to acquisitions) and pre-tax profit nudged up by £100,000 to £9.6 million. The company adds that “since the year end, trading has been good across all divisions, with the UK and US showing particular strength.” Even after the addition of Osprey Publishing and 200 Conway titles, sales at the adult trade division declined to £44.7 million (down£5.2 million), with a tough comparison to the year they published Khaled Hosseini in the UK. […]
Archives for May 2015
People, Etc.
Publisher of Cleis Press and founder of Viva Editions Brenda Knight is leaving the company, citing “irreconcilable differences of vision with the new ownership.” (The company was sold to Start Publishing in late 2014.) She adds, “But the authors of Cleis Press and Viva Editions are rock stars, too, and I will always be grateful to them.” Along with Knight, “the remaining original Cleis Press staff also resigned, effective immediately.” Knight plans to launch an author-centered marketing consultancy. NYT book critic Janet Maslin “has decided to leave the grind of full-time reviewing to become a contributing book critic, in which capacity […]
People, Etc.
In the UK, Orion ceo and Hachette UK deputy ceo David Young has officially announced his plan to retire at the end of year. Lagardere Publishing ceo Arnaud Nourry says in part: “For me, one of the great joys of Hachette’s acquisition of the Time Warner Book Group was getting to know David…. Under his leadership, the newly-created Hachette Book Group quickly grew to be one of the most successful and admired publishing houses in the US, discovering great talent and publishing many wonderful and original books and authors to global success…. I want to thank him most warmly for his friendship and support […]
Kindle Unlimited Pool Grows But Per Book Fee Stays In Range
Amazon provided their monthly discretionary boost to the KDP fund that tells self-published authors — retroactively — how much they will be paid for ebooks borrowed through Kindle Unlimited. For April accounting, the pool totals $9.8 million, the highest monthly amount yet. But the fee per book borrowed through KU remains in the relatively low range, at $1.355 per read. (That translates into roughly 7.232 million borrows for the month.) For the 10 months since KU began, through April, Amazon has paid out approximately $67.3 million so far.
Bookselling: BN to Close Forest Hills Store; Outgoing ABA President Bercu On “Continuing Resurgence”
Barnes & Noble will close its Forest Hills, Queens store in January, according to the NY Daily News, which reported comments from the 22,000-square foot store’s landlord, Muss Development. BN has occupied the space since 1995; should the store close it would leave its outpost in Bayside as the retailer’s only store in Queens. Outgoing ABA president Steve Bercu wrote a final letter to bookseller members hailing the “continued resurgence” of independent bookstores as a retail channel: “We have been able to see the results of rapid replenishment as it spreads to more and more of our publishing partners. We […]
People, Etc.
At Simon & Schuster Children’s, Laura DiSiena has been promoted to associate art director, Aladdin Books, while Regina Flath moves up to senior designer, Simon Pulse. Clarissa Wong has joined The Feminist Press as editor. She was previously assistant editor at Disney Publishing Worldwide. Maria Gagliano has left her position as senior editor at Portfolio to pursue freelance editorial work in business books, cookbooks, and general nonfiction. She can be reached at mvgagliano@gmail.com. Larry Dorfman joined Capstone as book trade sales manager earlier this month, based in Connecticut, replacing Paul Van Drasek (who retired earlier in the year). Obituary Pulitzer […]