Bringing one of our important new projects full cycle, here is our recap of deal statistics for the fourth quarter of 2021. As indicated in our three previous reports, US dealmaking continued to align roughly with consumer book sales, up a little bit in the fourth quarter after a softer third quarter and a robust first half of the year. Nonfiction and fiction deals both declined slightly compared to a big quarter in 2020, but remained near high points for the past five years, as children’s deals continued their uninterrupted growth — putting total deals for the quarter up 1 […]
Deals
Getting Gurnah
The NYT reiterates what we reported the day Abdulrazak Gurnah won the Nobel Prize for Literature: From his extensive backlist, only one title was active in the marketplace in print, PARADISE. On October 7, Ingram had about 300 copies available. Working with Ingram’s print-on-demand service, The New Press has been able to make more copies available quickly: NPD Bookscan shows sales to consumers of approximately 600 copies the week ending October 9, and just over 9oo copies the week ending October 16. (Update: It sold another 1,150 copies the week ending October 23.) The publisher tells the NYT they will […]
Frankfurt Deal Trends Show Good Activity, But Lag Last Year’s Records
Recently we reported on third-quarter dealmaking trends in the US, with a relatively strong performance falling a little below last year’s big quarter — just as Bookscan-monitored print sales have been strong but ebbing a little in comparison to 2020. We also flagged a falloff in debut fiction sales. Now we turn to another of our longstanding comparisons, looking at dealmaking in the shorter “pre-Frankfurt” window of the last five weeks plus two days. (Frankfurt is a week later than usual this year, so our count includes one extra, starting the Monday after Labor Day; the last longer season like […]
Third Quarter Deal Trends
Next week we will report on dealmaking in the six-week “pre-Frankfurt” window, but first we present the next installment in this year’s new look at quarterly deal trends. The first half of 2021 saw a marked surge in dealmaking, in line with record increases in consumer book sales: First quarter 2021 US deal volume was 19 percent higher than in 2020, and second quarter deal volume remained 18 percent higher than the same quarter the previous year. Those increases in deal volume tracked very closely with Bookscan print unit data, which showed sales at measured outlets up 18.4 percent in […]
Acquisitions: Artfilms to Bloomsbury
Bloomsbury Publishing has acquired the digital video and business assets of Artfilms, the video streaming service of Contemporary Arts Media. The collection of films from around the world includes documentaries, interviews, and masterclasses. Bloomsbury noted in a release, “This acquisition aligns with the overall mission of Bloomsbury Digital Resources to serve a global community of students, scholars, instructors, and librarians by providing creative online research and learning environments that deliver excellence and originality.” Bloomsbury Digital Resources managing director Kathryn Earle said: “The content aligns beautifully with our existing strengths – most notably in the visual and performing arts — and […]
Acquisitions: Netflix Buys Roald Dahl Story Company
Netflix has a deal to acquire outright the literary works of Roald Dahl and the company that manages and exploits them, the Roald Dahl Story Company. After licensing adaptations of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Matilda The Musical, Netflix said, “These projects opened our eyes to a much more ambitious venture – the creation of a unique universe across animated and live action films and TV, publishing, games, immersive experiences, live theatre, consumer products and more.” Based in the UK, the Roald Dahl Story Company has 26 full-time employees, led by managing director Luke Kelly. Separately, ILP said at […]