British retailer WH Smith has agreed to sell its High Street bookstore business to Modella Capital, valued at £76m on a cash and debt-free basis. They expect gross cash of £36 million at completion, £6 million a year later, and another £10 million “based on timing and realization of certain tax assets within the High Street business.” The deal is expected to close in the final quarter of the company’s fiscal year, ending August 31. The company is represented by Greenhill & Co. International for financial advising and Herbert Smith Freehills for legal advising. During a “short transitional period,” the […]
Archives for March 2025
The Edit: Nonfiction Reads For Spring And Summer
Welcome back to our new monthly column about buzzy upcoming releases. Earlier this month at the London Book Fair, we heard a lot of discussion about how to revive nonfiction. David Shelley, ceo of Hachette Book Group USA and Hachette UK, mentioned the ascendance of a subset of self-help he called “mind body spirit meets business development” (Shelley touted INNER EXCELLENCE by Jim Murphy, a recent acquisition by Grand Central publishing. republishing in trade paperback on 4/29.) Meanwhile, Sarah Wynn-Williams’ Meta tell-all, CARELESS PEOPLE, sold 60,000 units across all formats in its first week on sale according to the publisher […]
People 3/28
January Trade Sales Fell Slightly
The Association of American Publishers released its StatShot financial report for January based on data from reporting publishers. Trade sales for the month were $662.5 million, down 1 percent from 2024. Adult books sold $483 million, a 3 percent decline, with fiction falling 6 percent to $249 million and nonfiction flat at $234 million. Hardcovers fell 3 percent to $152 million and paperbacks fell 8 percent to $166 million. Digital formats grew, however, with ebooks up 3 percent to $67.2 million and audio up 8 percent to $78.9 million. Children’s and YA books sales grew 5 percent to $179 million, […]
Sutherland House Acquires Fitzhenry & Whiteside
Canandian independent publisher Sutherland House has acquired Fitzhenry & Whiteside. The acquisition includes Fitzhenry & Whiteside’s imprints Red Deer Press, Fifth House Publishers, and Whitecap Books, and their backlists, which “will be preserved and revitalized under the Sutherland House banner.” “We’re honored that Fitzhenry & Whiteside has entrusted us with its remarkable legacy,” said Kenneth Whyte, publisher of Sutherland House Books in a release. “F&W has played a defining role in Canadian publishing for nearly six decades, nurturing generations of authors and producing works that shaped classrooms, conversations, and culture. We’re honoured to carry their legacy forward, to steward their […]
Hunger Games Prequel Sells 1.5 Million Copies In First Week
Scholastic reports that SUNRISE ON THE REAPING, the new Hunger Games prequel by Suzanne Collins, sold 1.5 million English-language units across all formats in its first week, with US sales exceeding 1.2 million units. Circana Bookscan shows that this includes nearly 715,000 hardcovers in the US and Nielsen Bookscan tracked sales of just over 118,000 hardcovers in the UK. Scholastic writes in a release, “Sunrise on the Reaping has sold twice as many copies its first week on sale domestically as The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes in 2020 and three times as many copies as Mockingjay in 2010.” Elie Berger, evp, […]