Andrea Barzvi recently left ICM Partners after 13 years to start her own agency, Empire literary, where she will continue to represent commercial non-fiction as well as women’s fiction. At Sourcebooks, Nicole Villeneuve has been promoted to assistant publicity manager. Poet Billy Collins, 72, has sold his papers to the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, The finalists have been named for the Costa Short Story Award. In bookstore news, Main Street Books in St. Charles, MO — which was set to close on January 31 as the owners retire — is negotiating with a potential buyer. (A separate […]
Bookstores
Bookstore News: A Closing In Toronto, An Opening In Vallejo, and Rizzoli’s Pledge
Toronto’s Book City store group announced that they will close their flagship location (in the Annex) when the lease expires this spring, after 38 years in business. General manager and son of the group’s founder Ian Donker tells Quill & Quire, “we agonized over the decision, but sadly it didn’t make much economic sense to continue.” Their three other locations “have been strong and maintained their sales” and will remain open. Vallejo, CA has a new downtown bookstore, Koham Press, opened Wednesday by Rar Farmer (with a grand opening on January 25). A former manager of Half Price Books in Berkeley, […]
Stock Expert Cramer Says Amazon Shares Are “Modern Art”
Later in the morning television host and author of the just-released Get Rich Carefully Jim Cramer provided an investment view of publishing and the larger media landscape. Extending the morning’s discussion, he said, “I simply don’t know how to stop Amazon. It’s not constrained by the need to make money. It’s modern art. It’s Jackson Pollock. It can’t be explained. It’s a Rothko, and everyone else is Rembrandt — and everyone else is worth a lot less.” At the same time, Cramer noted, “it is the best multi-year growth story out there.” Ironically, because the share price is fueled by […]
The “Bezosologists” At DBW
Bloomberg BusinessWeek reporter and author of The Everything Store Brad Stone opened Wednesday morning’s Digital Book World sessions focused on Amazon. “In a way, this is a room full of Bezosologists; we all have to be.” Stone spoke in particular to the company’s vast ambition and persistence: “The one constant is Amazon’s 20-year history is that it does not give up…and can be fairly ruthless and self-absorbed in how it constantly tries to disrupt the existing order.” He referred to “the notorious one-star review of my book that was heard round the world,” in which “MacKenzie Bezos took issue with […]
Class Action Firms File Shareholder Suit Against Barnes & Noble
After Barnes & Noble acknowledged two SEC investigations into its accounting practices on December 5, a wave of class-action law firms announced “investigations” of their own and asked shareholders to contact them. On Monday two of those firms — Pomerantz and Ryan and Maniskas — both announced the filing of a class action suit against the company, filed in Federal Court in New York’s Southern District. They seek damages from the company and “certain” officers and directors, alleging violations of the securities laws that include “false and/or misleading statements” and a failure “to disclose material adverse facts about the company’s business, […]
Germany’s Weltbild In Bankruptcy Filing
Germany’s big bookseller Weltbild has filed for bankruptcy reorganization following longstanding disagreement among the 12 Catholic diocese that own the company on how to finance it, exacerbated by declining sales in the second half of 2013. The company said in a statement, “The lower level of sales expected for the next three years as well doubles the amount of financing needed until the company is restructured.” Reuters says that the filing “does not affect the bookstores,” referring to their half-ownership of Germany’s second largest book chain, which includes the Hugendubel stores. They have been the second-largest online bookseller in the […]