Late Thursday evening Amazon customers began to notice that buy buttons for Kindle books published by agency model publishers Random House, Penguin, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster and Hachette had disappeared, with Harper buy buttons dropping off after a twenty-minute interval. The deactivation was limited to the six agency model publishers, and affected Amazon’s US store only. At 1:28 AM Friday, an Amazon spokesperson told us and other outlets “the Kindle Store is experiencing a technical issue. We’re working to correct it.” A different spokesperson wrote back at 7 AM Friday to say “the issue had been fixed.” It remains unclear […]
People: New Religion Imprint for Crown; Former Penguin Canada President Bryan to Bloomsbury
Crown will launch a new dedicated religion imprint, Convergent Books, in Fall 2013. Aiming to publish between 8 and 10 books annually, it will “explore the contemporary faith experience for a broad range of Christians who are drawn to an open, inclusive, and culturally engaged exploration of faith.” The line will be headed by publisher of Crown’s Christian imprints Stephen Cobb and run out out of Colorado Springs, CO. The first list includes titles by David Anderson, Philip Gulley, Elizabeth Esther, Holly Burkhalter and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove. Former president of Penguin Canada Mike Bryan has been named executive director of Bloomsbury Information, reporting […]
People, Etc.
Abby Ranger has joined the early childhood group at Harper Children’s as senior editor. Previously she was an editor at Disney-Hyperion. In addition, Jocelyn Davies returns to the division as editor from Razorbill, where she held the same position. Donna Condon will move to Harlequin UK in January as editorial director, UK, responsible for Mills & Boon, Mira and Mira Ink. She has been senior commissioning editor at Piatkus Books. PGW will distribute Bilingual Books, which produces language learning product titles, as of January 1, 2013. 1973 National Book Award nominee for Apostles of Light, Ellen Douglas, 91, died Wednesday after […]
People
Melanie Tortoroli is joining Viking as associate editor, reporting to Wendy Wolf. She was previously an assistant editor at Norton and will focus on acquiring and editing nonfiction at Viking. Katie Levine has joined HarperCollins as assistant manager, corporate communications. Previously she was a communications specialist for employee communications at HBO. At Simon & Schuster, Charlotte Gill has been promoted to director, retail field sales. Allison Carroll has been named editorial assistant for Harlequin Desire and Romantic Suspense. She was previously editorial assistant and website manager for Dorchester Publishing. This Thursday night’s “not-quite annual gathering” of hundreds of San Francisco […]
Harper Reports “Solid” First Quarter and “Significant” Revenue Gain From Thomas Nelson
News Corp. reported first quarter earnings after the close of the market Tuesday. As usual, the release says almost nothing about book publishing results in particular, though at least this time they actually mention Harper by name, in relation to the acquisition of Thomas Nelson, which News Corp deemed a “benefit” to the overall company. Operating income at the newspaper-dominated publishing division fell almost in half for the second straight quarter, at $57 million, compared to $110 million a year ago. The publishing results reflected a $67 million charge related to closing News of the World (as compared to $17 […]
Bookselling: All 57 Cokesbury Stores to Close; Argosy Book Store Suffers Storm Damage; and More
The United Methodist Publishing House will close all 57 of its Cokesbury retail shops — 38 standalone bookstores and 19 operating in seminaries — between January and April 2013, the Tennessean reports. 185 full-time and 100 part-time employees will lose their jobs as a result. “This is just part of the evolution that bookstores are all experiencing,” a company spokesperson told the paper. “The stores have been declining as a percentage of sales for Cokesbury and the cost to operate them have been increasing. They’re no longer financially viable.” They are changing their focus to sell books online and through […]