This isn’t what you are thinking. Rather, on Wednesday morning, RR Donnelly announced the board has accepted an offer from Atlas Holdings to take the company private. The bid comprises about $620 million to buy out the equity, and takes on about $1.4 billion in debt. Atlas topped an offer made in October by Donnelly’s largest bondholder (as well as owner of about 15 percent of their stock) Chatham Asset Management, which quickly said they were prepared to offer a higher bid, subject to various contingencies. Not noted in the initial coverage — even from the WSJ — is that […]
AAP Shows Trade Paperback Gains in July
The AAP’s July StatShot report shows another good month for trade publishers. Sales of $705 million were up 9.3 percent from $645 million a year ago (which was a very strong month). The gains came entirely from a jump in trade paperback sales: Adding $35 million in adult books, and $27 million in children’s and YA books. Digital audio sales of $58.9 million were up less than 6 percent ($3.1 million), and ebook sales of $82.7 million were down more than 15 percent from $98.1 million a year ago.
Getting Gurnah
The NYT reiterates what we reported the day Abdulrazak Gurnah won the Nobel Prize for Literature: From his extensive backlist, only one title was active in the marketplace in print, PARADISE. On October 7, Ingram had about 300 copies available. Working with Ingram’s print-on-demand service, The New Press has been able to make more copies available quickly: NPD Bookscan shows sales to consumers of approximately 600 copies the week ending October 9, and just over 9oo copies the week ending October 16. (Update: It sold another 1,150 copies the week ending October 23.) The publisher tells the NYT they will […]
Imprints: Bonnier Books UK Adds “Mission-Oriented” Line
Bonnier Books UK will launch Footnote Press in early 2022, “an independently run, disruptive publisher” planning on 10 to 15 books a year of “stimulating and politically-engaged fiction and non-fiction.” Former co-owner and business development director at the radical publishing collective Zed Books Vidisha Biswas is managing director, reporting to ceo Perminder Mann. Video games and esports industry veteran Sujoy Roy is a co-founder, “using his digital skills to drive customer conversion and retention, and exploring new ways of aiding discoverability through gamification.” Mann says in the announcement: “I was blown away by Vidisha and Sujoy’s vision for Footnote Press, […]
Frankfurt Counts Victory
The Frankfurt Book Fair successfully staged a live event, which is a victory in and of itself in this Covid era. Whatever the unstated expectations might have been, organizers were quick to declare they had exceeded them. President and ceo Juergen Boos says in the press release, “After 18 months, Frankfurter Buchmesse represented a new start and, considering the travel restrictions in place around the world, it far exceeded our expectations. It just shows how resilient and creative our industry is.” By the numbers, the show was far smaller than usual, and smaller than the regulations would have allowed. This […]
Awards: Governor General’s and Cundhill Finalists
Two big Canadian literary prizes announced their nominees. The Governor General’s awards named English-language nominees in seven categories, including Fiction, where the field includes Rachel Cusk’s SECOND PLACE. Winners will be revealed on November 17. The Cundhill History Prize named their nominees as well (with the winner to be announced December 2.)