A year ago we experimented with extending our Publishers Lunch Buzz Books sampler of meaty pre-publication excerpts of notable new books to Winter Institute (also letting us cover the spring/summer publishing season) — and an amazing 16 of those 28 books wound up as “best of the month” picks on the major bookseller lists. That “class” included some of the most honored books (such as Philipp Meyer’s The Son; Anthony Marra’s A Constellation of Vital Phemonena; Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life; and many others). Now, along with the official opening of Digital Book World (with the ABA’s Winter Institute set […]
In Restructuring At Atlantic Books, Mirchandani Exits and Allen and Unwin Takes Control
After two “tough” years, the UK’s Atlantic Books has announced “a significant financial and organizational restructuring.” Shareholders are providing “substantial new funding, and editor-in-chief since 2007 Ravi Mirchandani is leaving “by mutual agreement.” The Bookseller says that minority shareholder Allen and Unwin has increased their investment to a majority share of the company. CEO Toby Mundy tells the magazine their results for 2012 were “pretty horrible” but says the new investment “puts us on much more stable footing, after a month or two of uncertainty. Although I’m very sad to be seeing some good people go, the change is good news […]
Class Action Firms File Shareholder Suit Against Barnes & Noble
After Barnes & Noble acknowledged two SEC investigations into its accounting practices on December 5, a wave of class-action law firms announced “investigations” of their own and asked shareholders to contact them. On Monday two of those firms — Pomerantz and Ryan and Maniskas — both announced the filing of a class action suit against the company, filed in Federal Court in New York’s Southern District. They seek damages from the company and “certain” officers and directors, alleging violations of the securities laws that include “false and/or misleading statements” and a failure “to disclose material adverse facts about the company’s business, […]
Kids Books Matter More In Print and In Store, As Teens Warm Up to eBooks — and Lose Interest In Reading
The third-annual Launch Kids conference kicked off Monday morning with a block of data presentations from Nielsen, ReaderLink, the Insight Strategy Group, and PlayCollective, painting a comprehensive picture of both the commercial marketplace for children’s print and ebooks as well as insights into how children use digital media. Nielsen president Jonathan Nowell and director Jo Henry underscored key trends as measured by the company’s combined data streams, following last fall’s acquisition of Bowker’s business intelligence and commerce solutions. (For clarity below, Nielsen Bookscan is the actual point-of-sale data collected from physical and online stores. The “surveys” are the former Bowker products, […]
Regnery Parent Company Is Sold to Salem Communications
As first reported in early December by Politico (and then mangled by some others over the holidays), publicly-held Christian radio broadcaster Salem Communications has indeed acquired the assets of Eagle Publishing, whose properties include Regnery Publishing. The company declares it creates “a conservative media powerhouse” combining “many of conservatism’s finest voices in talk radio, book publishing and digital media.” Eagle president Jeff Carneal says in the release, “When we made the decision to sell the company we knew we wanted to find a strong buyer that would fully embrace [owner] Tom Phillip’s important vision. Of the several interested suitors, Salem provided the […]
NBCC’s Debut Award to Marra, As Nominees Are Named
The National Book Critics Circle is giving their first-event John Leonard Prize for a debut work to Anthony Marra for A Constellation of Vital Phenomena. Katherine Powers is receiving their annual Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing, and author and translator Rolando Hinojosa-Smith is honored with their Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award. Their nominations across five categories look a lot like our consensus Best of the Best of 2013 lists (which include critics picks): Fiction The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie A Tale for the Time Being, Ruth Ozeki Someone, Alice McDermott The Infatuations, Javier Marias Autobiography Wave, Sonali […]