Wiley’s fourth quarter sales rose 2 percent to $445 million, with adjusted net income flat at $28.5 million. But those earnings were down a penny on a per share basis, at 46 cents a share, and declined 5 percent on a currency-neutral basis. Analysts were expecting 3 cents more per share in earnings, and $7 million more in sales than reported. A strong performance in higher education was offset by softness in Professional/Trade (P/T), which fell 3 percent to $110 million, due to “foregone sales” related to Borders’ bankruptcy. They say Borders “represented about 5 percent of projected P/T sales” […]
Bookselling: 42 More Angus & Robertson Stores Close; “Last Bookstore” Expands
In other bookselling news, 42 more Angus & Robertson stores in Australia are being shut and 19 A&R stores are being sold “within a fortnight”, resulting in the loss of 519 jobs: 116 full-time, 47 part-time and 266 casual book shop staff, with the remaining 90 jobs cut from A&R’s and warehouse staff. Sydney Morning Herald The LAT profiles Josh Spencer, owner of downtown LA used bookstore The Last Bookstore, which opened in December 2009 and recently moved to a 10,000 square foot location in the city’s downtown area. The upgrade seems to be working: “We sold more books here […]
Taschen Opens Store in Chicago’s Art Institute; More Borders Stores Get Deadline Extensions
Taschen will open a new store in Chicago’s Art Institute, which has set aside about 30 percent of the museum stores reconfigured book section for the specialty publisher. It’s the first time Taschen will operate a store as part of a museum and a way for the company to test the Chicago market. “The million-dollar question is would we do this in other museums,” Creed Poulson, spokesman for Los Angeles-based Taschen America, told the Chicago Tribune. “We would certainly be open to that. We’re very eager to see how this plays out.” Tribune Borders has been granted more time on […]
eNews: Raccah on What Sells Digitally and Physically; OverDrive Announcements; and More
In a data-drive blog post Sourcebooks ceo Dominique Raccah underscores that fiction is disproportionately dominating ebook bestseller charts as well as her company’s digital sales. While well over half of Sourcebooks’ print sales come from adult nonfiction, over 80 percent of their ebook sales are from fiction. “Right now we’re seeing relatively weak conversion of adult non-fiction to ebooks,” Raccah writes. While reference is the single largest category within nonfiction, she says “our experience at Sourcebooks is that it’s the hardest category to get right in ebooks.” Which is ironic, since epublishing and the internet were widely expected to eliminate many […]
Bertelsmann Folds Remaining Direct Group Business Under Corporate Investments Umbrella
With the three-year dismantling of Bertelsmann’s once globe-spanning Direct Group essentially complete, capped by the sale last month of the French-language clubs to Najafi Companies, the unit will no longer stand as its own business division as of the end of June. Bertelsmann announced Wednesday that the remaining Direct Group businesses in German-speaking countries and Eastern Europe and their 50 percent interest in Spain’s Circulo de Lectores will be folded into Berteslmann Corporate Investments (which also includes BMG and digital media and Asian investment funds), reporting to Thomas Rabe. In addition, Bertelsmann is still exploring a possible sale and other […]
People, Etc.
At Other Press, Megan Feulner has been promoted to publicist, and Sophia Sherry has been promoted to publicity and marketing coordinator. Tisse Takagi has joined Basic Books as associate editor. Previously she was at Oxford University Press. Justina Batchelor has joined Touchstone as a publicist. She was at Crown. Jessica Shoffel joined Penguin Children’s as a publicist. She was previous in the publicity department at Random House Children’s Books. Larissa Edwards, currently associate publisher at Random House Australia, will join Simon and Schuster Australia this July in a newly created role as head of publishing, reporting to managing director Lou […]