Further to our report earlier in July that Amazon is hiring staff for a new, unspecified physical store in Detroit (either a Books store or a 4-Star outlet), the company is now similarly hiring for another new store in Houston. Separately, in line with earlier indications, Barnes & Noble has opened a new roughly 14,000-square-foot store at Cityplace in Woodbury, MN, taking the place of a larger, nearby store that closed on Tuesday.
Archives for July 2019
Booker Longlist All But Omits Americans
As the tipsters suggested when we first published ahead of the official release, the Booker Prize longlist all but entirely spurns work by Americans for the first time since they started accepting nominations from beyond the Commonwealth in 2014. One candidate, Lucy Ellmann, is American-born, though she has lived in the UK since she was a teenager, now residing in Scotland, and is classified as Anglo-American. She’s in contention for Ducks, Newburyport, a 1,000-page monologue composed almost entirely of a single sentence. (It was published in the UK by Galley Beggar Press; the US edition is forthcoming from Biblioasis.) Up […]
Forthcoming Booker Longlist Said to Shut Out Americans For the First Time Since Rule Change
Since the Booker Prize first started accepting nominations from beyond the Commonwealth in 2014, American authors have claimed a healthy portion of the annual longlist: Four slots in 2014, five in 2015 and 2016 (when Paul Beatty became the first American to win the prize); four in 2017; and 3 in 2018. When Crankstart took over from The Man Group as the prize sponsor earlier this year, there was renewed hope from the UK that they would get their prize back and not have to face competition from the US, though the Booker Foundation indicated there would be no changes. […]
People, Etc.
Kendra Levin will join Simon & Schuster Children’s as editorial director on September 1. She was most recently an editorial director at Penguin Children’s. Heidi Sachner has left her position as vp of books at F+W Media. Sachner will be working with the Penguin Publishing Group on a consulting basis to assist with the integration through the end of the year and can be reached at hsachner@optonline.net. Filipe Silva has joined Macmillan as international sales manager, reporting Devin Luna, vp, international sales & marketing. Silva will be responsible for sales in Macmillan’s open market territories, with direct sales responsibilities for […]
Quad and LSC Terminate Merger Plan; LSC Gets $45 Million As Stock Plunges Further
Most publishers got what they wanted, for a change: Quad and LSC announced Tuesday morning that they have mutually agreed to terminate their merger agreement rather than wait on the trial scheduled for mid-November in the DOJ’s antitrust suit seeking to block the deal. “The parties have determined that the added delay, uncertainty and cost of legal challenges would have likely eroded a considerable amount of the expected benefits of the merger.” The deal was first announced in late October 2018. As a result, Quad will pay their once-again rival and top competitor a $45 million break-up fee. And LSC […]
People, Etc.
Callie Garnett has been promoted to editor at Bloomsbury. Jessica Gilo has joined The Monacelli Group as marketing and publicity director. She was formerly the assistant marketing director, culinary & lifestyle at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. George Hodgman, 60, author of memoir Bettyville, and former editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Holt and Simon & Schuster died on Saturday. He was found in his apartment in New York, and the cause of death is pending. Bookselling Chicago’s Pilsen Community Books, which opened in 2016, is for sale. Owners Aaron Lippelt and Mary Gibbons, who also run The Dial bookshop, wrote in an […]