With the Frankfurt Book Fair looming, we have compiled our semi-annual look at the state of dealmaking, this time bolstered by some very pretty charts. Visualizing our data should make it easier for readers to draw their own conclusions from the statistics, and it allows us to reveal more nuance to the figures as well. The first chart below looks at all US Publishers Marketplace deal reports from September. Deal volume among “comparable categories” continues to grow, up 7.5 percent over last year (when reports jumped almost 17 percent from the recession trough of 2009). But total deal volume is […]
Deals
Lonely Planet Founders Buy Canongate’s Stake in Text Publishing
Founders of Lonely Planet Maureen and Tony Wheeler have bought Canongate’s stake in Text Publishing for an undisclosed sum. Michael Heyward and Penny Hueston, who bought Text in tandem with Canongate in 2004 and created a joint venture whereby Text also published Canongate titles in Australia, will retain their share in the company and Heyward will stay on as publisher and managing director. Heyward added that Text and Canongate “will continue to work closely together to acquire books and authors.” “Our decision to sell our stake in Text was a strategic one that will enable us to focus more of our […]
Two New Buys For Amazon New York
Deal-watchers will take particular note of two reported buys for Amazon’s budding New York-based publishing unit. Liao Yiwu, who escaped from China this summer, is moving to Amazon from Harper One, for his account of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, FOR A SONG AND A HUNDRED SONGS: A Poet’s Journey Through a Chinese Prison. Gregg Housh and Barrett Brown’s ANONYMOUS, covered while on submission by the Observer, has been bought by Julia Cheiffetz for Amazon. The book is pitched as “Barbarians at the Gate” for the digital era, the story of the ordinary people who became hacker-activists and successfully brought […]
Knopf Announces New Bill Clinton Book for November
Former President Bill Clinton’s BACK TO WORK, a book on “the urgent challenges facing the United States and offering a plan to get America ‘back into the future business,'” will be published by Knopf on November 8. Knopf chairman Sonny Mehta acquired the book again, from attorney Robert Barnett at Williams & Connolly. (The $22.95 book will run 208 pages.) Clinton says in the text, “I wrote this book because I love my country and I’m concerned about our future.” And he defends the current administration’s philosophy: “There is no evidence that we can succeed in the twenty-first century with […]
Bookselling: Nebraska Book Company Gets Bankruptcy Plan OK; Easons Plans Layoffs and Store Closings; and More
A Delaware bankruptcy court granted approval to the Nebraska Book Company to seek votes from creditors on its reorganization plan, which would give control of the company to holders of more than 95 percent of its 8.625 percent senior subordinated notes and more than 75 percent of its 11 percent discount notes, the Lincoln Journal-Star reports. Secured lenders and noteholders would be paid in full with cash, and so long as equity holders don’t object to the plan, “they would get warrants to purchase 3 percent of the reorganized company’s equity at an enterprise value of $500 million, and 5 […]
W. Paul Young Signs With Hachette For Next Book After Settling ‘The Shack’ Lawsuit
Hachette Book Group has signed William Paul Young for an untitled follow up to his multi-million selling novel THE SHACK, for which the publisher’s Faith Words imprint handled marketing, manufacturing, sales and distribution since mid-2008 after the original edition from Windblown Media sold over a million copies. The news comes shortly after Young reached a final settlement agreement with Windblown Media founders Wayne Jacobsen and Brad Cummings on undisclosed terms on August 12, a deal that had been in the works for some time. (Young had alleged accounting improprieties, and Jacobsen and Cummings counter-sued, seeking joint copyright in the book.) […]