Scholastic reported Q2 results for the period ending November 30, 2018, again showing strong results in children’s trade books, which is a modest part of their overall sales, which were up slightly overall. Second quarter revenue was $604.7 million, an increase of 1 percent compared to $598.3 million in the second quarter of 2018 – despite a negative affect from the new ASC 606 revenue recognition guidelines. The new accounting rules lowered revenues by $10.8 million in the quarter, whereas in the first quarter the rules changes had added $9.3 million to sales. Adjusted EBITDA was $123.2 million for the […]
Archives for December 2018
PRH Labs Rolls Out Retail Partnership with West Elm, Promises More for 2019
Penguin Random House has publicized another one of their retail-focused experiments: Creating customized sets of books for display and sales in a pilot group of West Elm stores, pairing books in categories including art, design, and cooking with the retailer’s products. The project began in the summer, and they are calling attention to a holiday Pop-Up at the West Elm on Manhattan’s Upper West Side (on Broadway, between 62nd and 63, right near the PRH headquarters), which also includes gift, music, and children’s books. In the year ahead that “localized assortment program” will roll out to “a broader set of West Elm […]
People, Etc.
Jennifer Barth has been promoted to senior vice president, Harper. At Simon & Schuster Children’s Rebecca Vitkus has been promoted to production editor. Lisa Lauria has joined as editor for Simon Spotlight; she was most recently in the marketing and advertising department at Toys ‘R Us. Cassie Malmo has joined as publicity manager; she was most recently senior publicist at Disney Publishing Worldwide. Lauren Carr will join as publicist; she was most recently publicist at Bonnier Publishing. Annika Voss has joined as digital and social marketing coordinator; she was most recently marketing operations assistant at Scholastic. John Butman is joining Kneerim & Williams as an affiliated agent. He “has been involved in the creation of more […]
Mysterious Bookshop Staff Protests Penzler’s Letter To MWA
The staff of the Mysterious Bookshop in NYC pushed back against store owner Otto Penzler’s criticism of the Mystery Writers of America’s withdrawal of honoring Linda Fairstein as Grand Master. The store account posted on Twitter on Tuesday morning, “Let it be known that the Mysterious Bookshop staff in no way supports the letter that the Mysterious Bookshop’s owner sent to the MWA earlier this week.” Charles Perry, the store’s marketing coordinator, added to PL, “I don’t think there’s much more to say except that we were disappointed to see him use the store as a political platform.” Penzler’s letter […]
Give Yourself Some PM
We recently marked the 17th anniversary of PublishersMarketplace.com for our site members, though we have been too busy with end of year news to properly note the occasion for our wide audience of free newsletter readers as well. (Publishers Lunch is older by about a year and half, though we didn’t know we were starting something when we started, so there’s no easy day to mark.) Every year — and in fact pretty much every day — we work on iterative improvements to our site (in the past year we’ve had a major overhaul of parts of the signature “deals” […]
Penguin Random House US CEO Talks Author Earnings at NYPL
The New York Public Library and the Authors Guild co-hosted a panel discussion as part of their “Who Owns the Word?” series on December 10, moderated by novelist and Authors Guild vp Richard Russo. Authors Kurt Andersen, Alexander Chee, and TJ Stiles, along with Madeline McIntosh, the CEO of Penguin Random House US, joined Russo onstage. Much of the conversation focused on the continuing importance of physical stores to book discovery, narrowing in on online buying as a major contributor to the challenging environment faced by emerging novelists today, and by fiction authors more broadly. McIntosh kicked off that part of […]