Starting January 31, the UK’s Channel 4 will air a seven-episode TV series called The Great Cook Book Challenge with Jamie Oliver. Following a series of cooking challenges among 18 chefs, one winner will get a cookbook publishing deal with Penguin Michael Joseph. The publisher’s managing director Louisa Moore is head judge on the show. She says: “I hope and believe that this show offers an opportunity to showcase one area of publishing to a wider audience in a positive and genuine way, that it can start to help demystify the publishing process, because it is essential and necessary now […]
Newsletter Touts Book Material for Development
Former THR books editor Andy Lewis is writing a weekly column for start-up The Ankler that touts some forthcoming releases still available for film/TV options. Called the Optionist, he writes, “Every Friday, I’ll present un-optioned material from books, magazines, news articles, podcasts, games and graphic novels that I think deserve a look. I will attempt to go beyond hot titles on current lists from your book scouts, and pick out the hidden gems.”
RR Donnelly Is Still In Play
The slow but persistent battle over who will buy RR Donnelly continues. The unidentified strategic buyer has increased its bid to $11.50 a share after completing its due diligence — but they still need until February 8 to finalize their financing. In the meantime, Donnelly is moving forward with their latest formal agreement, in which Chatham Asset Management is paying $10.85 a share, aiming for a shareholder vote on February 23. The “strategic buyer” has promised it will pay back to the company the $12 million expense payment due to Chatham if the current agreement is terminated, along with the […]
Follett Book Fairs Sold to Literati
After saying they would exit their unprofitable school book fair business as of last November, Follett School Solutions has now announced the sale of that business to book subscription business Literati. According to the release, “Literati will inherit the Follett Book Fair infrastructure, including book inventory, distribution centers, and key members of the executive, sales and operations team.” They will begin booking school book fairs for spring 2022 in parts of the Midwest, Texas, and Southern California. Schools in the Southeast can book now for the 2022-2023 school year.
2021: The Year In Deals, and the Stats Behind the Boom
Overall Stats As we documented during the year, deal activity boomed in the first two quarters of 2021: US deal reports were up about 19 percent overall, and six-figure deals rose even more. In the second half of the year, dealmaking remained steady with a strong period from 2020, with the biggest “major” deals jumping at year-end. By year end, total deals rose more in 2021 than in 2020, and six-figure deals or better were particularly strong. At the same time, translation deals came roaring back after falling in 2020. Specifically: – US deals were up 9.4 percent overall, even more than […]
Fourth Quarter Deals
Bringing one of our important new projects full cycle, here is our recap of deal statistics for the fourth quarter of 2021. As indicated in our three previous reports, US dealmaking continued to align roughly with consumer book sales, up a little bit in the fourth quarter after a softer third quarter and a robust first half of the year. Nonfiction and fiction deals both declined slightly compared to a big quarter in 2020, but remained near high points for the past five years, as children’s deals continued their uninterrupted growth — putting total deals for the quarter up 1 […]