Audiobook streaming service Storytel reported 4th quarter and full-year 2019 results along with 2020 guidance on February 20, showing continued double-digit growth powered by aggressive investment in new markets. Net sales for Q4 2019 totaled 565 million SEK ($57.7 million), up from 436.6 million SEK ($44.6 million). Meanwhile, the company’s quarterly loss before tax was (104.4 million SEK/$10.7 million), compared to a (79.4 million SEK/$8.1 million) loss in Q4 2018. For the year, sales were 1.8 billion SEK ($183.7 million), up from 1.5 billion SEK ($153.1 million) in 2018. Loss before tax was (360.6 million SEK), compared to a (246.9 […]
Archives for February 2020
A New Controversy, Over Rage Baking Book
RAGE BAKING, published February 4 by Tiller Press, has sparked controversy after writer Tangerine Jones said the authors coopted the title and concept from her blog and social media channels. According to Simon & Schuster, the book features “a range of voices to speak to all those who feel a sense of outrage over what is happening in our society and express their rage and their creativity through baking.” Edited by Kathy Gunst and Katherine Alford, the contributors include Ruth Reichl, Dorie Greenspan, Preeti Mistry, Rebecca Traister, Ani Difranco, and others. In a February 14 post on Medium, Jones wrote […]
Briefs: LBF Addresses Coronavirus Concerns, Dan Brown Has A Picture Book, and More Bolton
The London Book Fair, due to convene starting March 10, has acknowledged concerns and inquiries about international travel in the wake of the coronavirus/Covid-19 outbreak. They write in a special post that they are “monitoring the situation carefully” and “the health and safety of our exhibitors, visitors and staff is our number one priority.” Precautions at the Fair will include public health messaging displayed and shared before and during event; strengthened hygiene, sanitization, availability of disinfectants; and strengthened medical support. Organizers suggest that “if you have any concerns that you may get caught up in an inbound or outbound quarantine, […]
Authors and Colleagues Remember Sonny Mehta
Knopf held a celebration of the life of Sonny Mehta at the New York Public Library’s Celeste Bartos Fourm — “a room Sonny loved” — on Wednesday afternoon, featuring remarks from 11 authors and colleagues. “We are assembled in a vast Cathedral of books,” James Ellroy said. “The great Sonny Mehta, the great publisher of the world, English language, worshipped the printed word on paper and we are here to celebrate this brilliant, reckless, dedicated man’s temporal journey, and to pray and wish him onward to his soul’s repose.” He noted later, “We hitched our star to Sonny Mehta. We […]
Quad Continues Sales and EBITDA Decline, But Exceeds Expectations
Quad announced Q4 2019 earnings February 18, with net sales of $1.1 billion, down 4.9 percent from a year ago–or 5.9 percent excluding sales from the Periscope acquisition. Adjusted EBITDA was also down, to $96 million from $118 million in 2018. Previously announced plans to sell the increasingly unprofitable book printing business are “progressing as expected,” according to ceo Joel Quadracci. That business is reported as discontinued operations, and that segment recorded a $100 million loss for 2019, though it was just above break-even in the fourth quarter. Assets are listed at $56.5 million. “In 2020, we will continue to […]
Apple Tries to Block Just-Released German Book About Their App Store
Apple is inadvertently promoting a book just released in Germany by the former head of their German app store business: APP STORE CONFIDENTIAL, by Tom Sadowski, from Murmann Verlag. (They are a small business publisher, founded in 2004, and seem to do custom publishing as well.) The company’s lawyers reportedly wrote to Sadowski and his publisher to demand that they not “deliver the book” and “recall all copies of the book already in circulation and…destroy all book manuscripts.” Apple says Sadowski “violated his employment” agreement in writing the book and alleges that the book contains “business secrets” that are “of […]