At the American Booksellers Association, Gen de Botton has joined the organization in the new position of program and development coordinator, supporting all publisher-related programs and initiatives. She worked at Borders and then the children’s bookstore Little Joe’s in Katonah, NY. Additionally, Teresa Pereira Neufeld has joined ABA as a part-time graphic designer. Emi Battaglia has launched Emi Battaglia Public Relations, “a full service publicity, marketing and literary consultation firm.” Most recently she was recently director of marketing and publicity at Regan Arts. Scholastic Education announced “three key appointments to leadership” as they expand to serve Learning Supports and Family and Community Engagement (FACE) programs nationwide. Joining the company are […]
Archives for August 2015
Google Play Books Cleans Up
The NYT’s Haggler columnist helps out an author whose book was pirated wholesale on the Google Play Books store. Google spokesperson Matt McLernon confirms that the company disabled enrollment of new self-published authors in May to combat significant levels of pirated ebooks on the site (e.g. unauthorized clones of real books by third parties). “At the same time, a team of employees went through all of the complaints filed by publishers. Pirate accounts were deleted. (The company eventually plans to restart the program.)” Or maybe not all the complaints. It took the attention of the Haggler to get the unauthorized version […]
Strong Dollar Lifts Penguin Random House; Buyout Talk Turns to Partial Sale
Bertelsmann reported results for the first half of 2015 from Germany on Monday morning, with the strong dollar powering topline gains at Penguin Random House. Sales of €1.697 billion were up 236 million euros compared to a year, and EBITDA of €207 million was €48 million higher than a year ago, both “mainly due to exchange rate effects.” (These totals include the separate Random House Germany, which was “near-stable” in the period. For all of 2014, RHG had sales of €279 million.) This reporting period also includes the incorporation of Santillana’s trade publishing lines (where were acquired on July 1, 2014), where […]
Simon & Schuster Tries A Kindle Unlimited Experiment
Since Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited subscription program launched just over a year ago, agency contracts have prevented the etailer from putting the five largest publishers’ books into the initiative without consent — though that hasn’t stopped Amazon from pulling in selected books from non-agency publishers without permission, paying for them like any other sale. But earlier in August, Simon & Schuster initiated the first known “big five” KU experiment, albeit a very modest one. Vince Flynn’s first Mitchell Rapp thriller Transfer of Power and the late author’s most recent installment The Last Man (published in 2012) have both been available for […]
Another Weak Year for Faber; A Weak RCS Waits A Little Longer to Close Mondadori Deal
UK independent publisher Faber has reported a second consecutive year of poor results. Reporting on a delayed basis — the latest figures are for the 12 months ending March 2015 — sales fell 1.8 percent to £15.9 million and the company recorded a significant operating loss of £813,000. That loss includes a “substantial one-off restructuring cost.” The company eliminated eight jobs in March. In the prior year, sales had fallen 18 percent to £16.26 million, and earnings went from more than £2 million to just below even. CEO Stephen Page tells The Bookseller, “Our view is that we have to be careful about what we publish […]
People
Scholastic announced a number of recent promotions. Emily Clement has been promoted to editor, Arthur A. Levine Books, while Marisa Polansky moves up to editor, Nonfiction. Celia Lee has been promoted to editor, Cartwheel Books, while Samantha Swank moves up to assistant editor. Finally, Beth Noble has been promoted to marketing manager, while Lauren Festa moves up to assistant marketing manager. Patricia McNamara has joined Abrams Children’s as digital and social media marketing associate. She was most recently a senior editor with Girls’ Life Magazine and GirlsLife.com. In addition, Caitlin Miller has joined as associate publicist. She was most recently […]