Firebrand Technologies announced the coming launch of two new products for publishers. Firebrand Flywheel uses a recommendation engine to “strategically select” and then execute titles for timely metadata enhancement. They will start onboarding clients in January. Title Management Lite, also available in January, is a simplified version of their core enterprise service, focused on smaller publishers “with fewer needs.” It still “includes the most important features your team needs to track workflows, manage schedules, and collect and distribute your data,” and is upgradeable to their Enterprise version.
With Its Stock Languishing, Endeavor Awaits Proposal From Controlling Shareholder Silver Lake to Go Private Again
It took Endeavor multiple attempts before they executed their 2021 public offering, at a modest $24 a share, though private equity company Silver Lake retained a dominant and controlling stake. But the market has been unimpressed, particularly as Endeavor pushed through a merger between their Ultimate Fighting Championship and World Wrestling Entertainment. The stock went from a high of nearly $35 a share at the end of 2022 to less than $18 a share earlier this week. Which led to Endeavor’s announcement Wednesday afternoon that it would explore a sale or sales: “Given the continued dislocation between Endeavor’s public market […]
Sales Trends Turn Positive
For the last three weeks, Circana Bookscan’s weekly totals of print book sales have been ahead of results for 2022, showing positive signs from the marketplace heading into the biggest sales period of the year. The only other time this year that current weekly sales have run ahead of last year for more than one week at a time was a five-week streak in March and April headed into Easter. The total market gained approximately 500,000 units over the past three weeks versus the same sales weeks in 2022, with the gains driven by adult titles, which were up 4 […]
The Book In Her
Britney Week has started a little early. There are revelations (or what the LAT calls “detailed, cogent accounts of indignities that would leave anyone seething”) in various places as well as excerpts, as the NYT weighs in early with a glowing review: It “reveals plenty about her life in the spotlight, and tempers well-earned bitterness with an enduring, insistent optimism.” The paper says their copy was “obtained in advance of its authorized release.” They write: “What Spears fills in, in prose that is chatty and confiding and occasionally salty, is the ongoing thrum of family dysfunction and fear — her […]
Barnes & Noble’s Hodgepodge Approach to Design Is Celebrated
We may never see actual performance results for Barnes & Noble, but the chain continues to flex a remarkable ability to generate glowing media out of the mundane. The latest is an admiring 1,700-word NYT feature on how the company has chosen to be aggressively inconsistent in the design of both their stores and their logo and branding. For one thing, it saves money: CEO James Daunt says, “We don’t have any architect doing our design at any stage. There’s no interior designer.” A couple of notable details emerge. There is this: “The old Barnes & Noble had what Mr. […]
Publishers Make Record Bets on Fiction Heading Into Frankfurt
The trends we noted in our recent analysis of third quarter deal reports — fewer overall reports, growing totals for adult fiction, but record numbers of “major” deals — come into concentrated relief as we narrow down into the traditional “pre-Frankfurt” dealmaking window in particular. Since 2021, the Frankfurt Book Fair has fallen a week later than usual, yet again our counts include one extra day of deal reports — but that makes for even comps to 2022 and 2021. For many years, FBF would come five weeks after Labor Day, so our count usually covers five weeks plus one […]