Lukins, the co-author of the Silver Palate Cookbooks and longtime food editor at Parade died Sunday after a brief battle with brain cancer.ParadeLAT obit
Sales Down 4 Percent at Random As Profits Are Hit Harder
Sales fell in the first six months of the fiscal year at Random House by 4 percent, declining 32 million euros to 734 million euros, as operating EBIT dropped even more at just 20 million euros for the period (down from 31 million euros a year ago.) The company blamed the decline on “the continued distressed economic environment and the reduction in inventory levels by major bookstores in the US.” And they say that “an extensive, international cost-saving initiative and the restructuring of the US publishing groups put in place last year partially offset this development.” In a letter to […]
Reading Rainbow Ends After 26 Years
Sadly, PBS’s groundbreaking program Reading Rainbow broadcast its final episode last Friday after 26 years, led by host LeVar Burton. It was the third-longest running children’s show on PBS, after Sesame Street and Mister Rogers, winning two dozen Emmys along the way. John Grant at public broadcaster WNED in Buffalo said that no was willing to invest the six-figure sum needed to renew the show’s broadcast rights. NPR says the lack of support is due in part to a “change in philosophy as to how television should teach reading,” placing a “heavier focus on the basic tools of reading — […]
Bookselling: Study Says 400 Bookstores Could Close This Year
A study by Chicago’s Grant Thornton warns that 10,000 retail stores across the US may close this year–twice the number of last year’s closings. Among the sectors they predict will be hardest hit are bookstores, with the firm saying that 400 bookstores could close in 2009, which they calculate as a 500 percent increase over 2008. (That would seem to undercount the 2008 closings given the reductions at Borders Group. And we could only find the prediction on bookstores in this Chicago Sun Times article, rather than the report itself.)Sun TimesDownload study
People: Munro Leaves Giller to Others
Recent Man Booker International Prize winner and two-time Giller winner Alice Munro, 78, has withdrawn her just-released story collection TOO MUCH HAPPINESS from consideration for the 2009 Giller prize. Publisher Douglas Gibson says: “Her reason is that she has won twice and would like to leave the field to younger writers. In my role as greedy publisher I pointed out that the Giller Prize produces so much publicity, that even to be nominated for it is tremendous publicity. But her mind is made up on this. Alice preferred to withdraw from the competition.”Globe and Mail
BN to Distribute Smashwords Titles
Ebook distributor and online self-publishing platform Smashwords announced late Friday that BarnesandNoble.com will sell titles from the company as part of its new “premium feed.” Smashwords, which says they publish about 2,600 titles electronically, will sell to BN.com at a traditional discount of approximately 50 percent, and will keep approximately 7.5 percent as their commission, giving authors and publishers 42.5 percent of the sale. Founder Mark Coker says that “additional distribution relationships are forthcoming.” He says that “until today, it was difficult if not impossible for independent authors and publishers to gain such mainstream digital distibution.”Company announcement