Meredith’s steady pullback from the book publishing business now appears to be Wiley’s gain: the book publisher has just announced a five-year licensing agreement starting March 1, 2009 that gives Wiley the rights to publish books using all of Meredith’s brand names, including Better Homes and Gardens, as well as marks including Family Circle, American Patchwork and Quilting, and Diabetic Living. Wiley will also take over as the exclusive distributor of Meredith’s backlist of about 200 titles, in all channels worldwide. According to Meredith’s version of the press release, they will “continue to create book content” from their offices in […]
Distribution
Distributor Tells Clients No Cash from Borders
Distributor IPG told clients in an e-mail (now cited on multiple websites) that Borders “tell us that they will not be paying us for two months due to anticipated excessive returns.” In the letter, clients were told that for new shipments to Borders, the distributor will guarantee only the actual printing cost of those books, for as long as “there are serious concerns about Borders viability.” IPG president Mark Suchomel tells us that “almost all of the clients” have instructed the company to continue shipping orders to Borders. He notes that “we’ve typically been very conservative and that’s been a […]
People and Distribution News
Marie Coolman will join Hyperion as executive director of publicity, taking over the position recently vacated by Beth Gebhard. She has been director of publicity and marketing for Hudson Street Press, and was west coast director of publicity at Random House after eight years with the company before going to the Penguin Group. Coolman says in the announcement: “Publishing needs a new approach, and that’s why I’m so excited to be joining the Hyperion team. As content providers, we need to meet readers where they go for recommendations – whether that is a friend, a media outlet, a bookseller, a […]
People and Other Announcements
Perhaps recognizing the confusion between their company’s two operating names, Newsstand is officially changing its name to the moniker better-known within our business, LibreDigital. They say the change is “to reflect its expanding set of product solutions to a broader set of publishers.” And they have hired Russell Reeder as president and ceo. He was president and coo of video-on-demand player NxTV. At Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Amanda Cook has been promoted to executive editor. In addition to her own list of acquisitions, she edits the Best American Science and Nature Writing series. David Ouimet is returning to PGW as director […]
Palin Book Moves to Tyndale
Tyndale House has taken over distribution of Epicenter Press’s biography SARAH: How a Hockey Mom Turned the Political Establishment Upside Down as of today. They are shipping what they say is a 250,000-copy printing (under a new ISBN of 978-1-4143-3050-1). Epicenter had been fulfilling through Graphic Arts Center Publishing and Ingram Publisher Services.Release
Sedita to Run Grossett and PSS; Ford Leaves HBG; New Boomsbury Line; More Personnel and Distribution News
Francesco Sedita has been named vp, publisher of Grosset & Dunlap and Price, Stern Sloan, reporting to Penguin Children’s president Don Weisberg and starting September 29. Most recently he was executive creative director at Scholastic, where he worked for the past seven years. Weisberg says, “Francesco’s varied background in creative marketing, school book clubs, in addition to his involvement with the campaigns for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and Brian Selznick’s award-wining The Invention of Hugo Cabret, makes him the perfect fit. For Grosset and PSS, I was searching for someone who is totally immersed in the trends of […]