Realigning Two UK publishers announced internal realignments. Ebury is adding “self” and “lifestyle/BBC” publishing “hubs” to the smart and entertainment hubs they created earlier this year — and now publicity and marketing are being brought closer together. It seems publicity is now called “campaigns,” with Joanna Bennett promoted to head of campaigns for the Smart hub, Tessa Henderson is head of campaigns for Entertainment; Stephanie Naulls has that position for Lifestyle/BBC; and they are recruiting someone for self. Separately, marketing becomes a Marketing, Insight & Digital centre (not a hub, or even a spoke), and will “share new digital resources […]
Archives for June 2019
Wiley’s Publishing Decline Continues, But CEO Sees Turnaround
Wiley reported 4th quarter and full-year earnings for the period ending April 30. First, the quarter: Q4 sales were $491.2 million, up slightly from last quarter’s $477.3 million but only because of $18 million extra revenue from the Learning House acquisition. Net income was $63.2 million, up from $54.1 million in Q4 2018. But publishing sales continued to decline further still; STM and professional publishing sales were down 2 percent, to $68.2 million from $71.5 million (much improved from Q3’s 20 percent decline), and education publishing sales were $29.8 million, down from $35.3 million. Turning to the full year, revenue […]
PRH Pays Modestly for F+W Books
Paperwork filed with the bankruptcy court overseeing the sale of F+W Media’s assets shows that Penguin Random House won the F+W Books list with a modest bid. They are paying $3 million at closing, with subsequent payments due equal to 70 percent of recent accounts receivable, plus 15 percent of the value of the printed inventory. PRH also assumes a limited set of liabilities and obligations to the assigned contracts, but only for on or after the closing of the deal. (That suggests that items like unpaid author royalties earned prior to the sale remain at the back of the […]
Lau Adds Quarto Shares
Quarto ceo CK Lau continues to expand his investment in, and control of, the publisher. Regulatory paperwork indicates that Lau and the printing company he controls acquired another 1.12 million shares of Quarto stock earlier this month. His combined stake now equals 33.63 percent of all shares — up from 20 percent in February 2018 — and he paid the market price of 63.2 pence per share. Yes, that’s as cheap as it sounds; the company’s market cap is about £12.8 million (or a little over $16 million). That’s a third of where it reached in March 2018, and less […]
People, Etc.
Kim Gray has joined Sourcebooks as director of sales – mass and special markets. She most recently was vp/director of sales for Reader’s Digest/Trusted Media Brands. At Little, Brown, Elora Weil was promoted to associate publicist (she has been supporting the Spark and Voracious teams), and Erinn McGrath moved up to director of publicity and marketing, James Patterson. At Little, Brown Children’s, Marisa Russell joins the company as executive director, publicity on June 24. She was publicity director at Penguin Children’s. Siena Koncsol has been promoted to associate director, publicity. Little Brown UK has been clearer than Dutton in the […]
Readerlink Could Aim to Top Bid for Barnes & Noble
Attentive readers will recall that we were pretty much alone last Friday in pointing out that the agreement for Barnes & Noble’s proposed sale to Elliott Advisors explicitly allowed the bookseller to continue negotiations with companies that had already made acquisition proposals on or before May 29. Late Monday the WSJ reported that Readerlink “is working toward making a bid…that would top the price” Elliott agreed to pay. We also told you on Friday when the stock was trading above the agreed upon deal price that investors could be expecting a higher bid. In late Monday and early Tuesday trading, […]