Founder of Westwood Creative Artists Bruce Westwood, 84, died peacefully at home on February 28. Originally a venture capitalist, he paired with Sterling Lord to create Sterling Lord Canada, and then created WCA in 1995 following the acquisition of McKnight Gosewich Associates and the Lucinda Vardey Agency. The agency notes that, “Bruce’s foundational belief was to build from within, and he was so pleased that the new owners of the agency came up through its ranks. If you’d like to honor Bruce’s memory and legacy, we can think of no more appropriate way than to raise a glass of rosé […]
Broader Horizons
In keeping with the times, we have reformatted the field for a Twitter handle on our PM Member Profiles to accommodate a full range of social media monikers. Using the tools on the Your Account page to edit your profile, in the Contact information section, look for the renamed Social URL field to update your information. You will need to enter the full URL, but you can link to Bluesky, Instagram, etc. as you wish. (We are happily posting publishing news again on Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/publisherslunch.bsky.social.)
ABA’s Hill On the “Values-Focused” Work, As “Amazon Owns the Playing Field”
ABA ceo Allison Hill reflects on her five years leading the organization, ahead of a commemoration of the ABA’s 125th anniversary at Winter Institute next week. Her focus has been to “transform ABA into a values-focused organization over the past 5 years. It’s always been a mission-driven organization, but we’ve worked really hard to define our values and focus our work, using those values as a North Star.” More broadly, she says: “The challenges booksellers have faced during my time in the industry have been a roller coaster. “It was, ‘oh no, e-books are coming,’ but now we’re in a […]
NetGalley Responds to Kobo Device Owners
NetGalley’s newly-launched implementation of Readium LCP-protected downloads left some users of dedicated ereading devices, particularly owners of Kobo devices, unsupported for now. The service wrote to users who reached out about the issue, “We understand change is hard, and we hear you — and we love Kobo, too! We’ve been actively in contact with Kobo, and the good news is they do have LCP support on their roadmap, we just don’t yet know the exact timeframe.” They note that, “Since Adobe unfortunately no longer provides active support for their DRM (.acsm), it is unsustainable for the long-term.” NetGalley evp Lindsey […]
ONYX STORM Sets Bookscan Record
Rebecca Yarros’s ONYX STORM sold 1,288,300 hardcovers across both deluxe and standard editions in its first week on sale through outlets tracked by Circana Bookscan. The deluxe edition sold 1,109,783 print copies, and the standard edition moved 178,532 copies. The service says, “These sales results also make ONYX STORM the fastest-selling adult title in the history of Bookscan, since we started tracking books in 2004.” Earlier this week, the separate service Nielsen Bookscan UK reported opening week sales in that market of 155,000 hardcovers, for them the fastest-selling fiction release since publication of Harper Lee’s GO SET A WATCHMAN. Little […]
Barnes & Noble Changes Buying and Campaign Teams, Lays Off Veterans
Following the quick departure of chief merchandising officer Jackie De Leo earlier in the month, Barnes & Noble has laid off a number of veteran staff as part of a “realignment of our buying and campaigns teams.” Senior director, books Shannon DeVito wrote in an email, “The aim is to streamline our responsibilities and better focus our efforts to improve our bookselling. Unfortunately, this has meant that a number of colleagues have left the business as their roles were removed.” PL is aware of at least seven longtime buyers and publisher liaisons whose roles were eliminated. As of today’s newsletter […]