Jessica Renheim and Toni Kirkpatrick have joined Crooked Lane Books and Alcove Press as acquisitions editors focusing on crime and book club fiction. In the Queen’s New Year’s Honors list, literary agent Felicity Bryan was given an MBE for services to publishing, and novelist Rose Tremain was made a Dame. Sourcebooks has acquired two adult mystery series, a YA trilogy, and a middle grade series from independent press Dunemere Books. They will relaunch them in 2020 and plan new titles for each series. Feminist writer and author of the 1998 book Life After Birth, Kate Figes, 62, died on December […]
Archives for December 2019
Briefs
Journalist and novelist Ward Just, 84, died Thursday of Lewy body dementia. His novel Echo House was a National Book Award finalist and his novel An Unfinished Season was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 2005. Romance novelist Johanna Lindsey, 67, died on October 27 in Nashua, NH. She wrote almost 60 novels that sold more than 60 million copies. PW named author Dav Pilkey as its “person of the year,” writing that “with sales of his Dog Man series skyrocketing in 2019, Pilkey is doing more to excite kids about reading than any author since J.K. Rowling.” The […]
2019: The Year in Mergers and Finance
The year’s mergers and acquisitions ended with a big deal that really wasn’t a big deal: The announcement of Bertelsmann‘s agreement to acquire the remaining 25 percent of Penguin, for $665 million, pending regulatory approvals. When Penguin and Random House first came together in 2013 — with no money changing hands — it was a merger, of near equals, but over time and now definitively, it became a full acquisition. Penguin Random House itself was an active buyer all year, with a particular emphasis on children’s publishing, and the company has pledged to continuing growing through further acquisitions. One of […]
Take Us With You
One more reminder: Our custom PM News App is a great way to monitor as much of the news and deals as you care to from your mobile devices while you are out of the office for the holidays. It provides easy access to all of our most frequently updated items, which can be read “in app” without having to link back to the site. (We will be keeping an eye on things throughout the holiday stretch and reporting and clipping links as warranted — as well as processing deal, posting jobs, and more.) To load the app just point […]
Scholastic Reports Strong Q2 for Trade Books
Scholastic reported second quarter earnings, with sales of $597.2 million, down from $604.7 million in last year’s Q2 (or 1 percent). Trade sales remained strong, though, at $103.6 million, up from $96 million (or 8 percent). Operating income was up, to $105 million, from $98 million one year ago (or 7 percent). Trade saw strong frontlist sales, from books including Raina Telgemeier’s Guts, Alan Gratz’s Allies, Maggie Stiefvater’s Call Down the Hawk, The Dinky Donkey, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: The Illustrated Edition, but also included the licensing revenue from Clifford, the animated programming now on Amazon […]
People, Etc.
Jessica Breen will join Basic Books as marketing director on January 6. She is currently digital marketing strategist at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Cassandra Pelham Fulton has been promoted to editorial director, Graphix. Due to an editing error, we left out Sasha Quinton’s first name from yesterday’s announcement on her move to Scholastic. Bookselling New bookstore Still North Books and Bar opened in Hanover, NH on Thursday. The Barnes & Noble in Greenfield, WI near Southridge Mall will close in summer 2020 when its lease expires. A hospital and primary care clinic will move into the space. Legal The European Court of […]