Archives for January 2025
Barnes & Noble Plans to Open Another 60 New Stores In 2025
After opening 57 new stores in 2024, Barnes & Noble hopes to add another 60 new locations in 2025, ceo James Daunt told a friendly reporter at FT. (Some people in the trade believe the quick sale of Sterling Publishing to Hachette Book Group in November was designed to help pay for that store expansion.) The FT doesn’t ask about store totals after incorporating the usual closures. The chain had 610 outlets at the end of 2023, and a representative writes to PL that the company ended 2024 with 653 stores overall, after balancing new locations with closed stores. That […]
Obituary: Andrew Pyper
Andrew Pyper, 56, thriller writer and author of Lost Girls, died on January 4 of complications from cancer. He was also the author of The Demonologist, The Damned, The Only Child, and more.
2024: The Year In Deals
A soft fourth quarter for overall deals (-3.2 percent overall) had only modest effect on what was a record-setting year for PM reports overall in 2024–even with continued weakness in the children’s market. Overall deals were higher than ever, as adult deals set new records by a large margin. And publisher investment, in terms of reported six-figure deals as well as in major and significant deals in particular, well exceeded previous records. In particular: – US deals overall were up 3.5 percent, just beating the previous record set in 2021 when pandemic retail sales also set new records. – Adult Fiction continued […]
Strong Holiday Sales Put Print Units Up for 2024
As we reported a week ago, shoppers turned to books late in the holiday season but with conviction, making print sales for the week ending December 21 the best holiday week of sales recorded by Bookscan over the past five years. That momentum continued into the final few holiday shopping days, with the sales week ending December 28 recording the highest “week 52” sales by far over the past five years. Barnes & Noble ceo James Daunt told the FT, “If you are in the ‘last minute’ game — and we are to an extent — then [ . . .] it was a […]
Fable App Generated Bigoted Reader Summaries
Social book tracking app Fable came under fire for offensive year-end reader summaries, which were generated by AI. One such summary reads, “Your journey dives deep into the heart of Black narratives and transformative tales, leaving mainstream stories gasping for air. Don’t forget to surface for the occasional white author, okay?” Others were flagged by users for being ableist, insulting their reading choices, and recommending books from “a straight, cis white man’s perspective”. Fable replied to users online with apologies for the content, noting that “Our reader summaries are intended to both capture your reading history and playfully roast your taste, […]