Book wholesaler Betrams has been sold to Smiths News for £8.6m, the Bookseller reported Friday, four months after its parent Woolworths went into administration. Smiths News, formerly part of WH Smith, has said that it “anticipates that working capital of about £7m will be injected over the period to August 31 into Bertrams” in order to increase stock availability and thereby customer service. “Publishers are delighted that Smiths News has acquired Bertrams and that they have a firm commitment to the future development of the company,” said PA president Ian Hudson. Smiths News has agreed that publisher’s debts will be […]
Distribution
Ingram Cuts 64 Jobs
Ingram has cut 64 jobs, including 34 at its headquarters warehouse in La Vergne, Tennessee and 30 at its Oregon warehouse. “We’re in this very difficult economic period where retail in all sectors is down,” company spokesman Keel Hunt told the Tennessean. “Ingram is being impacted by a falloff in order from retail booksellers. Their sales are down from the year before.”Tennessean
Distribution News: HBG Adds Oxmoor House, and other Announcements
Time Inc. Home Entertainment is taking over book production for all of Time Inc., which means the unit will integrate Oxmoor House, whose books include titles from Southern Living, Cooking Light, Sunset, Williams-Sonoma, and Weber Grills. As a result, Hachette Book Group will provide sales, marketing, and distribution for the Oxmoor House titles as of April 1 since they already work with TIHE. The nominees for the Hugo Awards and the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer have been named by Anticipation, the 67th World Science Fiction Convention. The winners will be announced on August 9. And the […]
Anderson News Sues
Anderson News filed a suit against major magazine publishers and two major distribution competitors, similar to the suits filed by Source Interlink, alleging that the parties conspired to put the mass market book and magazine distributor out of business. Separately, in the suit filed by four major book publishers to put Anderson into involuntary bankruptcy, a Delaware judge denied a request yesterday to appoint an interim trustee of Anderson News’ assets.Knoxville News Sentinel
Anderson News Said to Suspend Operations
The latest announcement in a week of see-saw reports about the status of mass-market giants Anderson News and Source Interlink has Anderson saying that it is suspending operations immediately. Mediaweek says the wholesaler indicated “that it would continue talking with publishers and retailers to find a way to stay in business, but that it had no choice but to cease operations to staunch years of financial losses.” There is no clear word on whether the move has any effect on Anderson’s handling of mass market books.MediaWeek Competitor Source Interlink dropped its demand for a fee of seven cents per magazine […]
People and Distribution
Hudson Street Press editor-in-chief Luke Dempsey will become editorial director, nonfiction for Ballantine Books on March 3. Former editorial director at Chronicle Books Jay Schaefer will be acquiring projects for Workman and Algonquin Books as an editor-at-large, still based in San Francisco. Unbridled Books is now using McArthur & Company for sales and distribution of its titles in Canada.