HMH reported results for the first quarter ending March 31. At HMH Books and Media, sales were $38.3 million, compared to $40.8 million last year. The decrease was primarily due to licensing revenue from the Carmen Sandiego series on Netflix, which did not repeat in the first quarter, but is expected later in the year. Net loss for Books and Media was $2.8 million, compared to $4.5 million last year. Adjusted EBITDA showed a loss of $680,000, compared to a gain of $4.2 million last year. For HMH overall, sales were $190 million, compared to $195 million a year ago. […]
Books-A-Million Says It Reopened “The Majority” of Their Stores
With the biggest concentration of its stores in the South, Books-A-Million announced Wednesday that it “has opened the majority of its stores to customers following local guidelines for safe and secure shopping.” Ceo Terrance G. Finley says in the announcement: “We are extremely appreciative of the support we have received from our customers during these difficult times.” He added, “Now that we are able to welcome our customers back to the stores in time for Mother’s Day, our booksellers stand ready to share the rich assortment of new books and products that we have been curating over the past weeks.” […]
Frankfurt Promises to Share Their New Vision Soon
Frankfurt Book Fair director Juergen Boos spoke with Ed Nawotka in an hour-long video conversation, to discuss a broad range of plans in formation for this year’s event. The big takeaway, as indicated in a previous statement, is that Frankfurt will not keep the community in suspense about their plans for long: Boos reaffirmed that by “early June we will be prepared to announce how Frankfurt is going to look like” this year. The current vision, as expressed in the conversation, is a hybrid of virtual events and a spread out version of the live fair itself. “I think it’s […]
New Books Publishing May 5
It’s another busy week for newly releasing titles ahead of Mother’s Day (even though our spreadsheet of changed pub dates for notable titles — publun.ch/pubdatechanges — has over 25 titles originally slated for publication today that were rescheduled). As in previous weeks, our sample Bookshop and Aerbook store carousels provide easy displays of notable titles publishing today in need of attention and support, featuring: 19 new works of fiction https://bookshop.org/lists/new-fiction-publishing-may-5 https://aerbook.com/store/publishers_lunch/New_Fiction_Publishing_May_5/215940 10 new nonfiction titles https://bookshop.org/lists/new-nonfiction-publishing-may-5-6f23356c-416c-4281-82f2-3c009f566658 https://aerbook.com/store/publishers_lunch/New_Nonfiction_Publishing_May_5/215941 9 new children’s/YA books https://bookshop.org/lists/new-children-s-titles-publishing-in-may https://aerbook.com/store/publishers_lunch/New_Childrens_Titles_Publishing_May/215942
UK Wholesaler Bertram’s Said to be Preparing Bankruptcy Filing, After Selling Off Some Assets
The UK’s second-largest book wholesaler Bertram’s is reportedly about to appoint bankruptcy administrators, the Sunday Times reported. That puts in jeopardy about 400 jobs, and considerable sums owed to publishers — despite Bertram’s being owned by investment group Aurelius. The owners have already cashed in some of Bertram’s liquid assets, announcing the sale of online bookstore Wordery to Elliott Advisors on Friday. (Elliott says they will run the company separately from Waterstones and Barnes & Noble.) In early April, they sold two other subsidiaries: Dutch antiquarian bookseller Erasmus and academic book and journal supplier Houtschild International were sold to Casalini […]
The Deals Are Alright
As you may have noticed informally, deal reports have been looking pretty steady over the past month at PublishersMarketplace.com, and with April coming to an end, we can share some data on dealmaking patterns since the pandemic hit. Broadly speaking, deal volumes were strong in the first half of March up until the cancelled London Book Fair. As companies moved to work from home and shelter-in-place orders rolled out across the country, deal reports got much quieter in second half of March. But April has seen a steady pick up in reports. Looking at the month on its own, we […]