Wylie O’Sullivan has been promoted to senior editor at Free Press, where she started in 2001 as an editorial assistant. Christina Biamonte will join Sony’s Digital Reading Business Division as new Content Account Manager, eBooks. She has been Subsidiary Rights Manager at Houghton Mifflin. At Sony, she will forge new publisher relationships and act as relationship manager for existing publishing partners. On Tuesday, Zondervan laid off 30 employees as part of a “streamlining [of] our operations,” with a total workforce of 374 people. At the same time, the company is hiring for its digital and multimedia operations, with the Grand […]
Bookstores
Life Under Agency: No Solution Yet for Wholesalers and Sales Tax
The Diesel eBookstore started blogging recently, in part to communicate with customers about the business interruptions from the transition to the agency model by at least some publishers. They reported that “negotiations between our distributors and the Agency Five publishers are taking a lot longer than expected” and “there is no current ETA” on when those files will be reinstated and sales-tax compliant. As they note in their most recent post, per our report from last week, after the agency titles are restored Diesel will need to collect sales and forward it to publishers, who will remit and report to […]
Bookselling: New Store, Old Story
Half Price Books will open their second Oklahoma City-area story in August.News OK Separately, former distributor Don Linn rants over last week’s non-story that “publishers are squeezing booksellers on credit.” He writes: “while you may feel like you ‘deserve’ better credit terms than others and that your credit risk is somehow different from some other credit risk, it’s just not true. Publishers and distributors already act as the bank with relatively generous terms and, in case you haven’t noticed, you get to return anything you choose to at anytime for full credit forever. So spare me the whining about credit, […]
Bookselling: Indie Expands In Borders' Shadow
Pittsburgh-area Bradley’s Books is opening three new stores this month, in mall-based locations previously filled by Borders Express stores. Owner Mike Paper tells the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, “Our competitive advantage lies in the fact we deal with primarily bargain books–overstocks, remainders, close-outs, things we can find at deep discounts. In today’s environment, it’s especially valuable to offer consumers value.”PTR
Borders May Try to Raise New Equity, While Paying Steep Interest On New Loan
Borders filed details on their new credit agreements with the SEC along with filing their formal quarterly report. They disclose that the new $90 million term loan carries a minimum interest rate of 14.75 percent. Additionally, Borders needs to raise at least $25 million from the sale of new stock shares by May 15, or else there will be a $10 million reserve against the borrowing base of that term loan. (Even with yesterday’s sharp rise in the stock, Borders still has a current total market cap of about $150 million.) Good old Pershing Square is protected in the case […]
More from Borders
Borders management provided a few additional details on their status in a conference call with investors this morning following yesterday’s refinancing and fourth quarter results. But more formal details about their performance and the details of their new debt agreements will come later today when they file their 8-K with the SEC. CFO Mark Bierly said there should be “not that many” Borders superstores likely to close in the coming year. “We do have some stores that will come up for renewal” and the company “will continue to have active dialogue” with landlords over those locations. He admitted that “overall […]