Kepler’s 2020, the non-profit organization that is now the de facto owners of the Menlo Park bookstore after longtime owner Clark Kepler retired, has begun a fundraising drive to raise more than $1 million by the end of the summer. (Nearly $400,000 has already been promised by prominent individuals in Silicon Valley.) But first they have to finish negotiating down what had been almost $1 million in debt. The new funds are designed as “start-up capital for the new Kepler’s” rather than cash to pay off the old Kepler’s bills. “The good news is that most of the publishers were willing […]
Bookstores
Burkle to Reallocate His Barnes & Noble Stock
Barnes & Noble’s stock was having a rough day in Thursday morning trading and then briefly plunged in the afternoon following an SEC filing by large shareholder Ron Burkle. What he reported to the SEC is that two of the entities he controls–Yucaipa American Alliance Fund II and Yucaipa American Alliance (Parallel) Fund II–are going to “distribute in-kind” their shares to the funds’ owners. (It’s difficult to tell from Burkle’s filing how his 19.74 percent block of Barnes & Noble stock is spread among multiple entities, each of which is credited with substantial interest in same pool of shares.) The market’s […]
Legal Briefs: 17 More States Join Amended eBook Pricing Complaint; ‘Godfather’ Sequel Proceeds in Escrow; and More
Late last week 16 more states, as well as the District of Columbia, joined the amended ebook pricing complaint against Apple and the ‘Agency Five’ publishers, bringing the number of states involved in the lawsuit to 32. Texas and Connecticut initially filed the complaint at the same time as the DOJ; among the new plaintiffs are Virginia, Indiana, New York, and Wisconsin. Page One Bookstore in Albuquerque, NM, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in February 2011, said it expects final approval of a reorganization plan to move forward as a going concern “shortly,” according to the Albuquerque Journal. Owner […]
Tattered Cover One Step Away from Airport Stores; Politics & Prose Travels
A Denver City Council committee unanimously sent to the mayor and full council for approval the proposal to give the Tattered Cover the concession for four bookstores under their own name and one combined store paired with Hudson News at the Denver International Airport. The stores would open in early 2014. Washington, DC’s Politics & Prose bookstore has launched a literary travel tour program, working with DC-based Academic Travel Abroad (which works with the Smithsonian, National Geographic, and various alumni associations, among others). “Part tour, part roving literary symposium, each trip will be led by an expert in the field,” including store […]
People, Etc.
Sara Nelson has been named editorial director, Amazon.com books, responsible for “leading our editorial vision for books in the print and Kindle bookstores” a company spokesperson told PW. She was most recently books editor at O Magazine, and prior to that was editor-in-chief of Publishers Weekly. Nelson, who will work out of New York starting next month, said in a statement: “I am thrilled to have the opportunity to expand the content on Amazon.com and to bring my voice to this Web site visited by millions of passionate readers.” (We’ve noticed many people in publishing mistakenly think she’s working for […]
Books-A-Million Announces Formation of Special Board Committee for Buyout As Shareholder Sues
Books-A-Million formally announced the creation of a special committee of independent directors that will evaluate and make a recommendation regarding the Anderson family’s bid to take the company private. The committee, comprising Albert C. Johnson and J. Barry Mason, has retained King & Spalding as its legal counsel and is in the process of retaining financial advisors. In the same statement, BAMM’s board of directors again cautioned shareholders and other interested parties that the board “has only recently received the proposal and no decisions have been made…. There can be no assurance that any definitive offer will be made or […]