Complete

Kiser to Hyperion, and More Personnel News Crown editorial director Kristin Kiser will move to Hyperion as vp and associate publisher, starting May 27, reporting to president Ellen Archer. Kiser will be responsible for the management of the production, art, operations, and sub rights departments, along with managing the strategic planning for the company’s publishing program and coordinating and directing campaign plans for Hyperion and Voice frontlist and backlist titles. At Barnes & Noble, vp of the newsstand business Jaime Carey has been promoted to the newly created position of chief merchandising officer, responsible for the merchandise buying of all […]

Here Come the e-Catalogs HarperCollins is the first to announce plans for an electronic sales catalog, which they will preview at BEA and launch in beta form over the next six to 12 months. Among the planned features: “Book covers, prices, on-sale dates, reviews, quotes and important media alerts will be updated in real time as soon as they have been entered. Booksellers will be able to create lists and place orders online as they review front list book pages, and an author’s entire backlist will be visible as well.” Catalog pages will link to other content, and “booksellers will […]

Waterstone’s Rises In Europe it’s the season of brief trading updates. From the UK, Waterstone’s parent HMV reported that sales for the past 16 weeks (through to late April) rose an encouraging 6.6 percent on a same-store sales basis. Overall sales rose 3.3 percent. (Breakout figures were not provided.) Waterstone’s managing director Gerry Johnson tells the Bookseller, “We have definitely stopped the decline and we are now growing,” citing a “very strong performance” from books in particular. He added, “I think the whole base of our strategic programme is coming through and we are seeing very good results. We are […]

Bertelsmann Updates on Quarter, as Executive Sends New Signals In a short first quarter trading update, Bertelsmann disclosed that sales fell almost 4 percent to 4.2 billion euros, as net income turned positive again at 35 million euros. Operating EBIT, the company’s preferred measure of profits, rose 9.6 percent from the same period a year ago, to 217 million euros. Aside from losses due to currency exchange, the only other negative factor cited in the short report — which does not provide any breakouts by division — is that “revenues were also impacted by declines in sales of physical recordings […]

Lagardere Just Above Flat for the Quarter In a first quarter trading update, Lagardere announced that sales in their publishing division were “virtually unchanged, rising by just 0.5 percent” to 413 million euros. Hachette Book Group USA is credited with a “strong pace of growth” and the UK had “robust growth in adult and children’s fiction,” with gains in those areas eroded by drops in both the dollar and the pound against the euro. Meanwhile, in France sales fell, in part due to a “weak market in Literature,” though “illustrated books performed well,” as did book sales in Spain. Looking […]

If They Do It As you surely know by now, the NYT’s man in Frankfurt Mark Landler has echoed — without attribution — the story last month from Germany’s Manager Magazine (which is partially owned by Bertelsmann’s Gruner + Jahr) that we cited here previously suggesting that Peter Olson will step down as ceo of Random House shortly. The Times puts the timetable at “in the next few weeks,” with one unnamed executive saying “It’s just a question of working out his deal.” A source for the WSJ “cautioned that no final decision had been made but said Mr. Olson […]