Lagardere reported first quarter earnings, with publishing sales of €415 million down €6 million or 1.4 percent (and declining 2.1 percent on a like-for-like basis). The results include a €5 million contribution from the acquisition of Rising Stars in the UK a year ago. (The Perseus acquisition did not close until April 1 and will be reported in the next quarter.) The company reminds investors “that the first quarter traditionally makes a lower contribution to the year as a whole.” After a big rebound in the fourth quarter of 2015, HBG USA sales fell 10.3 percent. The company blamed a “less intensive…release schedule” and “tough […]
Archives for May 2016
HarperCollins Creates Program to Support New Bookstores
HarperCollins announced a New Store Development Program to support independent booksellers opening new stores (or additional locations) in the US. Qualifying stores can get extra discount, “in the form of market development and fixture funds, on orders placed priorto opening and for the first three months of operation.” Harper will also give grants towards ABA membership dues and three months of Above the Treeline fees. Harper’s president of sales Josh Marwell says in the announcement, “We want to do everything we reasonably can to encourage” the growth in indie stores, “especially in the critical early days of a new store’s life.” American Booksellers Association ceo Oren Teicher adds, “While our market […]
People, Etc.
Brenda Chin will join Entangled as editorial director of the Brazen and Scorched imprints. Previously she was editorial director at Harlequin Blaze. Amazon global v-p and general manager of Kindle China Zhang Wenyi has been appointed president of Amazon China, while continuing to lead the country’s Kindle business. Milkweed Editions will open a new bookstore, Milkweed Books, in downtown Minneapolis in late June or early July. According to MPR, Milkweed publisher and ceo Daniel Slager estimates “about a quarter of the store’s stock will be Milkweed books, and the rest will come from a variety of publishers across the country, […]
Fall/Winter Preview: Commercial Fiction
In addition to sharing 40 substantial pre-publication excerpts from notable forthcoming titles, our free ebook Buzz Books 2016: Fall/Winter also opens with our signature preview of hundreds of additional titles to look for in the coming months. With BEA now underway, we’ll be running selections from those preview lists in Lunch this week. Yesterday we ran our nonfiction preview; today we present highlights in commercial fiction, with debut & literary fiction to follow later in the week. Remember, you can get the adult and YA trade editions of Buzz Books 2016 as direct EPUBs from us, or from NetGalley for any platform. The consumer editions […]
TV, Services and Education Lift First Quarter Bertelsmann Results
Bertelsmann issued a brief first quarter performance update, with sales rising less than one percent to €3.95 billion, as group profit rose, up €42 million to €185 million. The credit goes to RTL Group’s European broadcasting and international TV production businesses, Arvato’s services businesses, and Relias’ education business (with an assist from the still-strong dollar). CEO Thomas Rabe says in the release, ” We are well on our way to making Bertelsmann a faster-growing, more digital and more international company. Our investments and the progress we have made in implementing our strategy prove this. Since January 1, we have worked in a […]
IDPF Considers Merging Into Larger W3C
After three years of collaboration, the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) announced from BEA that discussions are ongoing about having the organization absorbed into the larger — but more broadly focused — World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The press release says they are exploring “mutual interest in combining their respective organizations to more quickly advance publishing technologies on the Open Web Platform.” Comments will be solicited from the organizations’ members — for a little while — and initial reactions on Tuesday made it clear that some IDPF members may not be ready to give up on an independent organization to become […]