The lobby of Penguin Random House Canada’s offices in Toronto now includes a 158-square foot bookshop, Penguin Shop. PRH Canada ceo Brad Martin said in the announcement: “We are continually in search of innovative ways to bring the books we are so proud to publish to readers. As such, we see Penguin Shop as a research and development lab–a place where we can interact directly with consumers.” Penguin Shop has one employee, Justin Sorbara-Hosker, who is helped by volunteers from the PRH Canada offices upstairs. Milkweed Editions’ expansion into bookselling, Milkweed Books, is set to soft-launch in early September and […]
Bookstores
Results Steady At WH Smith, But…
On Wednesday WH Smith issued a short trading notice in advance of their annual results on August 31, saying the report will be “in line with expectations.” Simple enough. That release inspired an equally short but potentially confusing Bloomberg piece that declares, “In the era of Facebook and Twitter, a British newspaper seller pre-dating Queen Victoria is providing bigger gains for investors than modern technology. Over the last five years, WH Smith shares have eclipsed an index that also includes Apple and Google, even as its sales have maintained a steady decline.” Yes, WH Smith’s stock rose sharply between January […]
People, Etc.
At St. Martin’s, Lisa Senz has been promoted to vp, associate publisher, reporting to Jennifer Enderlin. Jackie Cantor will join Gallery Books as senior editor on August 29. Most recently she was executive editor at Berkley. Jessica Schmidt will join Running Press as director of marketing and publicity on September 14, working out of the Philadelphia offices. Previously she was director of sales and subsidiary rights at The Story Plant. Cara Raguz joins BlueBottleBiz as marketing coordinator. Previously she worked in the field marketing department at Nimble Storage. Awards Marilynne Robinson has won the Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award […]
Barnes & Noble Fires CEO Boire; Will Try Again
After the close of the market on Tuesday, Barnes & Noble announced that the board of directors “determined that [CEO Ron] Boire was not a good fit for the organization and that it was in the best interests of all parties for him to leave the company.” As a result, executive chairman Len Riggio will postpone his planned retirement this September “until a later date.” The undistinguished tenure of Boire lasted a little less than a year. In that time, the company failed to recover from the botched relaunch of their website and continue to lose online sales. They also failed to […]
Announcements: PRH Pairs with InstaFreebie, Amazon Gets Permission to Test Drone Functions In UK
The Random House Publishing Group has joined HarperCollins in working with InstaFreebie to promote pre-publication book excerpts. (Harper acquired The Midlist, a deals email newsletter run by InstaFreebie’s parent company, last October.) InstaFreebie currently reaches approximately 300,000 consumers and delivers excerpts via email, providing optional social DRM — which RHPG is using on their excerpts. As ceo Jason Freeman notes in the release, “Readers who receive advanced access will frequently buy, review, and/or recommend the book.” For RHPG, in addition to the direction promotional value, the relationship is part of their larger initiative to build up their consumer email lists by millions of […]
Hastings to Liquidate Between Now and October 31
Per our previous reports, the stalking horse bid from liquidators Hilco and Gordon Brothers has prevailed, and it appears that no other offers were made at Wednesday’s scheduled auction. While the plan requires final acceptance by the Bankruptcy Court on Friday, complete documents for a “notice of successful bidder and agency agreement” were filed last night. Once approved, the liquidation sale will begin immediately, and continue through October 31 at the latest, with all Hastings stores to be closed. (Locations can be closed earlier than that on a store-by-store basis, with seven days notice to the employees.) As we indicated […]