A bid to unionize Skyhorse employees has fallen short, with 18 votes in favor of joining United Auto Workers Local 2110, and 28 against. The months-long union drive sought to increase employee compensation, restore personal time off and sick days that had been reduced, provide greater job security (noting in 2017 the company “laid off 12 employees with little to no warning”) and ensure Skyhorse complies with OSHA laws following complaints of working during water outages, and contending with facilities in “disrepair,” among other areas of negotiation. Twenty-three additional ballots were challenged by the union proponents, though it appears that would not affect […]
Archives for December 2017
Trend Watch: Waiting for the Holiday Turnaround
With weekly Bookscan statistics showing overall print unit sales for the holiday season still lagging the previous two years, it comes down to the final two weeks to see how book sales will fare. With less political distraction than a year ago, and a continuing trend of rising print sales needing to make up for declining ebook sales, one would hope that print book sales would already show a better holiday sales pattern. Over the past 3 weeks, through December 10, book unit sales as measured by Bookscan registered just over 58 million units, down 2.7 percent, or 1.6 million […]
Harassment Files: Women Lead Paris Review Search, Two Top Executives Leave Audible
Two top Audible executives, chief content officer Andrew Gaies and chief revenue officer Will Lopes, resigned from the company, first reported by Hollywood Reporter on December 5. Announced in an email to staff from ceo Don Katz, no reason was provided for the resignations, which are being linked by inference to an ongoing internal investigation into workplace harassment that was announced before Thanksgiving. There is no concrete or on-the-record information to go on, with a spokesperson saying, “Because Audible doesn’t disclose the details of personnel matters, we can’t provide additional information on their departures.” Katz did tell employees in a […]
People, Etc.
Harper Children’s has created an new internal editorial team focusing on teen and middle grade fiction. Erica Sussman is editorial director of the team, joined by Kristen Pettit, Emilia Rhodes, Alice Jerman, Elizabeth Lynch and Stephanie Stein. Rachel Zugschwert will join Lerner Publishing Group as group marketing director starting January 1. She was most recently director of marketing for Sparkhouse Family. Jill Braithwaite moves over from group marketing director to the role of publishing director, trade. Jenny Krueger has been promoted to publishing director, school & library. Mark Budde has been promoted to executive vice president, chief operations officer. Jaymie Stewart Wolfe will join […]
Amazon’s Year-End Charts
Following the introduction of Amazon Charts in May, Amazon has created a year-end package of 2017: This Year in Books, powered by Charts. The “most read fiction” list, topped by The Handmaid’s Tale, includes four Harry Potter titles (available for free through Prime Reading and Kindle Unlimited) and one house title, from May, Mark Sullivan’s Beneath A Scarlet Sky from Lake Union Publishing. Dan Brown’s Origin, at No. 9, is the only other 2017 release in their top 10. Mark Manson’s The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck is their most read nonfiction book. (Though his second book was […]
People, Etc.
At Chronicle Books, Tessa Ingersoll has been promoted to associate director of international sales. Lynda Zuber Sassi been appointed to director of international and subsidiary rights sales. Linda Iarrera is joining McGill-Queen’s University Press as sales manager. Previously she was manager of institutional sales for US academic library accounts at Wiley. Mark Hillesheim left his position recently as national account manager for Legato. He was the final dedicated Legato employee, and with his departure that distribution unit is formally finished. Following Ingram’s acquisition of the Perseus distribution companies in 2016, Legato and its clients have been fully integrated into PGW. Legato was founded as […]