Finding out the actual sales for a book—whether it’s your own title, or a comp title you are curious about—can be quite difficult. The gold-standard data service publishers, retailers and agents use to track actual retail sales of trade print books in the US is Bookscan. (It includes Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, Costco, Target, Walmart, and many other general and specialty retailers selling books, plus over 800 independent bookstores, covering approximately 85 percent of trade print sales in the US.) As of this week, Bookscan’s parent company has changed its name, so you will see it referred to as […]
Archives for March 2023
Ask An Expert: Editor Sara Birmingham
Sara Birmingham joined Ecco in 2018 after stints at Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Oxford University Press. She primarily acquires literary fiction, especially debut, as well as memoir, narrative nonfiction, and essays with a contemporary focus. Is it important for an agent to have preexisting contacts or relationships with editors before submitting a manuscript, especially when it comes to debut fiction? When writers are considering agents for representation, to what extent is this track record of previous sales with particular editors or publishers important, and what does this mean when considering new agents or agent assistants building their own lists? […]
People 3/15
Obituary: John Jakes
John Jakes, 90, bestselling author of The Kent Family Chronicles and the North and South trilogy, died on Saturday at a hospice facility in Sarasota, FL. Jakes wrote around 60 novels across many genres, but saw the biggest sales for his historical fictions, some of which sold in the millions.
Bloomsbury Expects to Finish Fiscal Year with Better Results Than Forecast
Bloomsbury released a brief trading update for the year ended February 28, with expected sales of more than £260 million, above their previous expectation of £242.6 million, and profit before taxation and highlighted items of £30 million (compared to a forecast of £26.9 million). At the six-month mark, the company had reported their highest-ever sales and profits at that point, and strong sales continued through the fiscal year. CEO Nigel Newton said, “Bloomsbury’s unique position in combining consumer and academic publishing combined with our investment in high quality content and company acquisitions has enabled us to achieve excellent trading for […]
Lagardere Board Approves Radio Spinoff
As Lagardere and Vivendi both take steps to ease the path towards approval of their pending merger by the European Commission, Lagardere’s board has approved a plan floated earlier to preserve the independence of their radio division. The company intends to spin the radio division (comprising Europe 1, Europe 2 and RFM) into a separate, limited-partnership holding company. Arnaud Lagardère would be “indirectly the general partner and personally the managing partner,” and he “would be solely responsible for supervising the managers and teams of the radio division and would be the ultimate decision-maker on editorial policy.” There had been longstanding […]