With the first cases of COVID-19 at Barnes & Noble’s big 1.4-million-square-foot distribution center in Monroe, NJ, a coalition of warehouse workers and other advocates have planned a protest outside of the facility on Tuesday afternoon “to demand protections.” The organizers note the facility “employs nearly 800 workers, most of whom are Latino immigrants.” Among their demands are asking for a two week closure of the facility — with paid time-off — for “full sanitization,” with “better safety protections, including sufficient personal protective equipment (PPE), social distancing and cleaning” thereafter along with “hazard pay” and “recognition of the ability to […]
Archives for April 2020
Corporate: In the UK Furlough Is A Gentler Word, WH Smith Reports Deep Declines, Amazon’s Expanded Focus Includes Children’s Books
Hachette UK and Bonnier Books UK are furloughing approximately 10 percent of their staff, the Bookseller reports, and Penguin Random House UK will do the same with an unspecified percentage of their workforce, but furlough is a gentler process in the UK than it is in the US. For Britains, furlough means a temporary layoff under which the government covers 80 percent of wages through the end of May. All three publishers have said they have elected to “top up” the salaries of furloughed employees, so that they will receive full wages. In the US, a furlough means a temporary […]
People, Etc.
Andrea DeWerd has joined Houghton Mifflin Harcourt as senior marketing director, overseeing general interest, lifestyle, and culinary titles. She was most recently as senior director of marketing for Random House Christian and Crown Forum. James Akinaka has been promoted to digital marketing coordinator at Penguin Children’s. Selihah White has joined Melville House as a publicist. White was publicity assistant at Penguin Press. PEN America president Jennifer Egan discusses her own experience with a suspected case of coronavirus and how the pandemic is affecting writers on the organization’s podcast. Picks Oprah Winfrey chose Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker (out today […]
A Big Week for New Releases
Even with the many changes in spring pub dates that we have been tracking at publun.ch/pubdatechanges, April remains packed with new books coming to market. As we have done the past couple of weeks, we are ready to call attention to a number of notable titles publishing today in need of attention and support. Our sample Bookshop and Aerbook store carousels provide easy displays of: 30 new works of fiction https://bookshop.org/lists/new-fiction-publishing-april-7 https://aerbook.com/store/publishers_lunch/New_Fiction_Publishing_April_7/177704 13 new nonfiction titles https://bookshop.org/lists/new-nonfiction-publishing-april-7 https://aerbook.com/store/publishers_lunch/New_Nonfiction_Publishing_April_7/177703 11 new children’s/YA books https://bookshop.org/lists/new-children-s-titles-publishing-april-7 https://aerbook.com/store/publishers_lunch/New_Childrens_Titles_Publishing_April_7/177705
Status: More on Macmillan’s Layoffs, Barnes & Noble Redesigns Stores, WH Smith Will Sell More Shares
Further to the 5 reported layoffs at St. Martin’s (primarily from Thomas Dunne Books), last week’s companywide job cuts at Macmillan also saw the elimination of 5 positions at Farrar, Straus, including executive editor Colin Dickerman, svp, director of special projects Jeff Seroy, and vp, sales and marketing, Picador Darin Keesler. Another 3 positions were eliminated at Holt, including executive editor Paul Golob and senior editor Jonathan Cox. Subsequent disclosures also included Diana Gill, Melissa Frain, Diana Pho and Alison Bunis at Tor. Given that a spokesperson said last week, “We are doing layoffs across the organization,” that suggests that […]
Tracking Pub Date Changes
As you know, we already spend a lot of time identifying and listing notable forthcoming books over a three month horizon — so at PM, we have monthly lists for April, May and June. Recently, we have used that data to amplify new releases on a weekly basis. And tomorrow we’ll issue lists of over 50 titles releasing on April 7 alone. As a result, that means we’re also tracking pub date changes in detail. Today we’re sharing that data in a separate spreadsheet, via publun.ch/pubdatechanges. We show you the original pub date as well as the new date, arranged […]