Two years after being named Publisher of the Year by ForeWord Magazine, Kunati Books has closed for business. Publisher Derek Armstrong confirmed in a brief telephone conversation this morning that the company has begun winding down its operations and letting authors know of the situation. “It’s an orderly and friendly wind-down,” Armstrong said, who singled out that the difficult economic climate made it a “bad time for business.” He also indicated that further information would be available in a week or so but promised that authors would have the rights to their work revert back fully to them. Cheryl Kaye […]
Bloomsbury Stays Confident Despite "Difficult" First Half
Blaming “difficult markets” – not to mention the absence of any Harry Potter title – Bloomsbury’s sales and profits declined considerably in the first half of 2009. Sales dropped 25% in the UK to £22.2m, and profit fell almost 50% to £1.7m, though Bloomsbury’s specialist publishing business saw sales growth of 34%, overtaking its children’s business in size for the first time. Revenue for the first six months was £35.3m compared to £42.1m in 2008. Profit before investment income and amortisation of intangible assets was £1.2m, compared with £3.5m a year earlier. Bloomsbury’s adult trade business saw sales fall 20% […]
Despite Revenue and Sales Decline, Quarto Interim Results Deemed "Satisfactory"
Reporting on the first half of the year ending June 30, Quarto revenue decreased by 5% to £41.8m, adjusted EBITDA increased by 14% to £8.4m, adjusted operating profit was down by 6% to £2.1m, and adjusted* pre-tax profit dropped to £0.3m. Publishing segment operating profit rose by 5% to £2.4m on £29.9m revenue (a 2% drop) while Co-Edition segment operating profit declined to £0.5m on £11.8m revenue, a 12% decrease. For the year, revenue was up 3% at £110.7m, adjusted EBITDA increased by 7% to £23.0m, adjusted operating profit was 1% higher at £11.2m, adjusted pre-tax profit was 1% lower […]
Dominick Dunne Dies at 83
Dominick Dunne, the former movie producer who found a second career as a bestselling author and true crime correspondent for Vanity Fair, died earlier today at his home in Manhattan after a long battle with bladder cancer. He was 83. At the time of his death he was putting the finishing touches on his new novel Too Much Money, which Crown is scheduled to publish in December. “Crown has lost a great storyteller, chronicler, and friend in Dominick Dunne, with whom we enjoyed a more than twenty-five year association that included five best-selling novels, two collections of essays, and a […]
Children's Publishers Withold Payments from Bologna Book Fair
Th Bologna Book Fair plans to scale back the 2010 edition to three days (March 23-25) and that has children’s book publishers very unhappy. The Bookseller reports that a group of up to ten publishers are refusing to confirm their booking or make payment until the fair organisers agree to extend the fair back to four days or to reduce the exhibitor’s fees by 25%. A meeting will take place next week between the PA and the Bologna fair organisers to try to resolve the situation.The Bookseller
The Daily Google: EPUB Format, More on the Open Book Alliance
Google Books will make over one million public domain titles available in EPUB format in order “to make these books more accessible by helping people around the world to find and read them in more places.”Google Books Blog The Internet Archive’s Peter Brantley tells the Guardian about the Open Book Alliance, a “hodgepodge” of corporations like Microsoft, Yahoo and Amazon as well as libraries and journalists who oppose the Google Books Settlement. “We see this as an organization that’s really quite heterogeneous in its composition,” he said, “each of [organization] whom, by the way, has very distinct and very specific […]