The Jimmy Patterson children’s imprint at Little, Brown will narrow its focus going forward, limited to publishing titles authored by or written in collaboration/partnership with James Patterson. Founded in 2015, the line’s original objective was to have about half of their titles as independently authored books, acquired by staff with Patterson’s input and oversight. Going forward, Jimmy Patterson will no longer acquire non-Patterson titles. The books already under contract will all still be published under the Jimmy Patterson name “with James Patterson’s full engagement and support,” though their publication will be overseen by Little, Brown Children’s. The company says that […]
More Deal Stats: A Lot of Debuts, and A Rebound for Fiction
As noted in yesterday’s overview of US deal reports ahead of when the Frankfurt Book Fair would have convened, a notable strength this year has been a surge in debut fiction sales. As this chart makes clear, the 59 reports in the measured period are almost twice the average number of debut fiction sales from recent years. (On top of that, we logged another 5 debut fiction sales on Wednesday that are not included in this count.) In line with that increased volume, reported six-figure or better deals for debuts are also higher than ever, with 12 such transactions, including […]
NYT On the Struggles of Indie Booksellers
The NYT explains to general readers the challenging situation for many independent booksellers as they balance hopes for the critical holiday season against the challenges of shopping in a pandemic — exacerbated by limits on printing and reprints, and slower and more expensive shipping, and higher expenses regardless. The ABA surveyed members in July and among the approximately 400 respondents, a third said their sales were down 40 percent or more for the year. That 40 percent is in line with what Vroman’s in Los Angeles told customers when appealing for help to survive. Twenty-six percent indicated sales were flat, […]
Barnes & Noble Admits “Cybersecurity Attack”
By Wednesday evening Barnes & Noble admitted to customers that the “serious network issue” we reported on Tuesday was indeed “a cybersecurity attack, which resulted in unauthorized and unlawful access to certain Barnes & Noble corporate systems.” Previously, the company had only said they were “investigating the cause.” As we had suggested, the company also now confirms the bookseller was “made aware” of the attack back on Saturday, October 10, and systems have been impaired since then. On Thursday morning BN executive Jackie DeLeo sent an email to publishers as well. The effects were so sweeping, as we previously described, […]
No Fair, But Abundant Deals
As indicated in our early look at the first three weeks of post-Labor Day dealmaking in the US, transactions have remained strong in the five weeks and one day that we measure every year as the pre-Frankfurt Book Fair period. Here are the updated results, now with pretty charts. Total deal volume was up Pre-Frankfurt US deal totals have been consistently dead flat for the past five years — but this year, they spiked to their second-highest total in the past decade. Overall reports were up 11.5 percent over last year (81 more deals). And this year’s count was just […]
Time to Vote
It is your right and your responsibility to vote, and people across the spectrum seem to agree that this is a critical election for our nation. The pandemic has made voting more complicated than ever, and many factors have made voting more time-consuming than ever. With early voting now underway in almost every state, we asked a variety of companies of scale in our industry from around the country about their policies to provide employees paid time off to participate. In addition, some companies also told us about special policies for volunteering to work the polls — “for which there […]