Penguin Random House released its annual workforce demographics report, with the numbers showing modest improvement in diversity over last year. While the majority of employees both in non-warehouse and warehouse and jobs remain white — 74 percent, and 75 percent respectively — BIPOC employees accounted for 52 percent of new hires, up from 43 percent in 2020. Asian workers accounted for 17 percent of new hires (up from 9.9 percent); Hispanic workers accounted for 14 percent (up from 11.3 percent); and Black workers accounted for 15.9 percent (up from 13.9 percent ). Bi/Multi-racial hires fell from 7.9 to 4.8 percent. […]
Archives for October 2021
Imprints: Bonnier Books UK Adds “Mission-Oriented” Line
Bonnier Books UK will launch Footnote Press in early 2022, “an independently run, disruptive publisher” planning on 10 to 15 books a year of “stimulating and politically-engaged fiction and non-fiction.” Former co-owner and business development director at the radical publishing collective Zed Books Vidisha Biswas is managing director, reporting to ceo Perminder Mann. Video games and esports industry veteran Sujoy Roy is a co-founder, “using his digital skills to drive customer conversion and retention, and exploring new ways of aiding discoverability through gamification.” Mann says in the announcement: “I was blown away by Vidisha and Sujoy’s vision for Footnote Press, […]
People 10/26
Katie O'Callaghan has been promoted to senior director of marketing, working on Harper hardcover, Harper Design, and Broadside Books.
People 10/25
Ashley Yepsen has been promoted to publicity manager at Harper One.
Frankfurt Counts Victory
The Frankfurt Book Fair successfully staged a live event, which is a victory in and of itself in this Covid era. Whatever the unstated expectations might have been, organizers were quick to declare they had exceeded them. President and ceo Juergen Boos says in the press release, “After 18 months, Frankfurter Buchmesse represented a new start and, considering the travel restrictions in place around the world, it far exceeded our expectations. It just shows how resilient and creative our industry is.” By the numbers, the show was far smaller than usual, and smaller than the regulations would have allowed. This […]
France Passes Legislation Requiring Minimum Shipping Rate
French parliament has passed, but not enacted, a law requiring a minimum shipping fee for books, Reuter’s reports. The legislation is clearly aimed at Amazon, which charges as little as one cent for shipping, after France banned free shipping in 2014 in an attempt to level the playing field with independent bookstores.