August 6 was the closing date for the tender offer for Barnes & Noble shares, and Elliott Advisors reports that approximately 82 percent of all shares outstanding were tendered. Those shares — and with it the entire BN — are paid for today, August 7, and Barnes & Noble has officially become a “privately held, indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Elliott.” The bookseller’s shares will no longer trade on the New York Stock Exchange. In the announcement, Elliott reiterates that it “seeks to build upon this strong foundation as it addresses the significant challenges facing the bricks and mortar book retail […]
Archives for August 2019
People, Etc.: Toni Morrison Dies at 88
Toni Morrison, 88, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature and the 1988 Pulitzer for fiction, died on Monday night at the Montefiore Medical Center in New York. Robert Gottlieb, Morrison’s longtime editor at Knopf, said in statement, “She was a great woman and a great writer, and I don’t know which I will miss more.” Sonny Mehta, chairman of Knopf, said: “Toni Morrison’s working life was spent in the service of literature: writing books, reading books, editing books, teaching books. I can think of few writers in American letters who wrote with more humanity or with more love […]
People, Etc.
Sarah New will join Knopf as publicist starting August 6. She was previously associate publicist at Bloomsbury. At Workman Publishing, Amanda German has been promoted to gift sales coordinator. Ally McNamara becomes sales coordinator within the trade sales department. Katharina Gadow has joined as national accounts manager, online sales. Most recently, she was national account manager at DK Publishing. Lindsey Smith has joined Speilburg Literary Agency as agent representing pop culture, lifestyle, and prescriptive nonfiction. Previously, she co-founded a small press and created the Launch Your Dream Book course at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Nick Wright has joined Bonnier Books UK as […]
Remember July: How Did They Pick?
Our first little experiment last month proved to be popular, so we’ll continue our monthly recaps of how the previous month’s high-profile retailer and book club picks fared in the marketplace. (Of course these statistics are only a partial view, of print sales only. Some of these books were highly anticipated — and well pre-ordered — long before any of these selections were announced. And we know from experience and previous analyses that Reese Witherspoon’s picks will overweight significantly for increased digital audio sales rather than print sales, thanks to her close commercial partnership with Audible.) But over time we […]
People, Etc.
At Penguin Publishing Group, Lauren Monaco has been promoted to senior vice president, group sales director, for Penguin Random House sales. Carrie Swetonic moves up to the newly created position of senior executive director, nonfiction backlist. Caroline Payne has been promoted to marketing coordinator at Dutton. Vijay Seshadri has been named poetry editor of the Paris Review. He won 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for 3 Sections and a 2015 Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Giulia Rizzo joined HarperCollins Italia as children’s editor, reporting to editorial director Sabrina Annoni. She was previously with Terre di mezzo Editore and […]
August Picks: Apple Books, and More
The Last House Guest by Megan Miranda is Reese Witherspoon‘s Hello Sunshine book club pick for the month. Apple Books‘ picks for August are: Chances Are…, by Richard Russo True Believer, by Jack Carr Who Are You, Calvin Bledsoe?, by Brock Clarke The Outlaw Ocean, by Ian Urbina See Jane Win, by Caitlin Moscatello Trick Mirror, by Jia Tolentino The Right Swipe, by Alisha Rai The Escape Room, by Megan Goldin Cold Heart, Warm Cowboy, by Caitlin Crews The Merciful Crow, by Margaret Owen A Dangerous Man, by Robert Crais Lost You, by Haylen Beck The Warehouse, by Rob Hart […]