Lonely Planet announced to Melbourne staff Thursday that it will shift the bulk of its web operations to the company’s UK offices and slash costs by 18 percent, cutting 70 jobs in the process. The company said the move was due to a strengthening Australian dollar and declining sales. “Despite the fact that we’ve delivered on everything we set out to achieve this past year, the devastating impact of foreign currency exchange shaved over $13 million off our 2010/11 revenues. And at the moment, we have more than 80 per cent of our revenues coming from outside of Australia & New […]
Bookselling: Laredo Gets a Chain Bookstore Again; Diesel Close to New Malibu Digs; World Book Night in US; And More
The city of Laredo, TX, which last year famously became the largest American city without a new bookstore when a B. Dalton branch closed, will no longer have that distinction as of today – thanks to the arrival of Books-A-Million in the very same space. (A used bookstore, Escape Again Bookstore, did open in the city last year.) AP Diesel, A Bookstore is close to finding a new home in Malibu after it was forced to close earlier this year because of landlord and construction issues. Malibu Country Mart owner Michael Koss said at Monday’s City Council meeting that he […]
People, Etc.
Literary agent Wendy Lipkind passed away on May 9 from cancer at the age of 68. She founded the Wendy Lipkind Literary Agency in 1977, representing a diverse group of non-fiction writers including Ross Greene, Barry Sears, Cynthia Fuchs Epstein and Constance Hale. A private funeral will be held on Friday May 13, and donations in Wendy’s memory may be made to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids or The Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation. She is survived by her husband, Hillel Black, and her son, Harry Black. Legacy.com guestbook Abby Levine will retire in June after 28 years of […]
With First Quarter Sales and Profits Up, Quarto Switches to Reporting in US Currency
Quarto reported first quarter sales of $32.6 million, up 5 percent from a year ago and the first time the company has reported earnings in US dollar values, which means “the impact of currency is much reduced.” EBIDTA rose slightly to $5.28 million and operating profit was up by 10 percent to $500,000, the margins still relatively slim on what they deem a “very quiet period.” Ceo Laurence Orbach commented in a statement that Quarto was “making good progress on its growth strategy,” which included the February acquisition of Cool Springs Press. With respect to ebooks, Quarto expects to generate […]
eNews: iFlow Reader Shuts Down, Blaming Apple’s New Policy; Kobo eReader Price Drop; and More
In advance of any official reckoning between Apple’s reinterpreted rule requiring “that if an app offers customers the ability to purchase books outside of the app, that the same option is also available to customers from within the app with in-app purchase,” the makers of the iFlow Reader app are angrily throwing in the towel. BeamItDown Software publisher Philip Huber announced that the company and its ereading app will cease operations on May 31. They launched their ebookstore in December 2010 and say in a posted letter to customers that “two months later, Apple changed the rules and put us […]
Children’s Edition of ‘Heaven Is For Real’ Due In November, As Sony Acquires Film Rights
Thomas Nelson will publish a children’s edition of Todd Burpo & Lynn Vincent’s bestseller HEAVEN IS FOR REAL on November 9, priced at $14.99. The book has sold over 2 million copies and spent the past 17 weeks at #1 on the NYT non-fiction bestseller list. The new edition, titled HEAVEN IS FOR REAL FOR KIDS, will include illustrations by Wilson Ong, a Q&A for children and a prayer page. In related news, Sony Pictures has acquired film rights to the book, with Joe Roth and T.D. Jakes slated to produce. Roth told Deadline he became curious about HEAVEN IS […]