Anne Kubek has joined the InScribe Digital as EVP, General Manager. She had been EVP of merchandising and marketing at Borders, spending 20 years with the company before leaving in late 2009. Meg LaBorde Kuehn joins Kirkus Media in the new position of vp of business development. Her most recently publishing position was coo of Greenleaf Book Group. Former Granta Books managing director David Graham has joined Aurum and its associated trade publishing division, where he will be setting up a new imprint, Union Press, which will focus on “serious literary writing”, specifically non-fiction. Former Granta staffers Alex Clark and […]
Distribution
HB Fenn Bankruptcy Filing Lists $25M in Liabilities; Macmillan To Ship Direct As of April 1
Canadian distributor HB Fenn confirmed its February 3 bankruptcy announcement in a statement of affairs filed with the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy Canada. In it Fenn lists $25 million (CA) in liabilities against $14.8 million in assets. Fenn owes $21.8 million to unsecured creditors, with Macmillan the largest by far (owed $10 million, with an additional $600,000 owed to its UK arm.) Other notable unsecured creditors, according to Quill & Quire, include four H.B. Fenn-affiliated companies comprising Fenn Publishing, Fenn Technologies, and two numbered corporations bearing H.B. Fenn’s Bolton address who together are owed $4.1 million, HarperCollins ($3.3 million, […]
McEvoy Adds to Group with Princeton Architectural Press Purchase
Founder and owner of New York-based Princeton Architectural Press Kevin Lippert has sold the company to Nion McEvoy’s The McEvoy Group as of January 1, announced today. Lippert is staying on as president and publisher. Chronicle has been the publisher’s distributor since 1995, and will operate the press “as a stand-alone operation.” McEvoy Group president Jack Jensen says “we look forward to helping Princeton consolidate its position as one of the preeminent publishers of books on architecture and design in the world, and to expand its offerings in both academic and electronic publishing. Lippert had repurchased shares in the publisher […]
The Potential Costs of Borders’ Unpaid Bills
With Wiley’s $9 million writedown last Friday of money owed to them by Borders that they do not expect to collect, it’s clear that the bookseller’s troubles are going to hit balance sheets even before the possibility of hitting bankruptcy court. Most of the coverage since we first reported in late December that Borders was not paying major creditors has focused on the largest publishing companies, but with a second month of non-payment we wanted to look at how the impact of Borders current inability to pay their bills might be felt across a much wider group of publishers. Since […]
Grove/Atlantic Turns Digital Distribution Over to Constellation
As part of the renewal of their physical book distribution relationship, Grove/Atlantic will now use Perseus’s Constellation for digital distribution services as well. At one point Grove had come close to working with Open Road, though that deal was never completed and the publisher has been managing its own digital publishing until now. Company head Morgan Entrekin said he concluded that “our strength is to focus on the editorial, marketing and publishing side rather than the distribution side” in the digital space, as they already do with physical distribution. “You have to figure out how to allocate your resources in […]
People, Etc.
Pete Bohan will join Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children’s as senior marketing manager, retail on January 24, based in New York. He previously worked as marketing manager at Chronicle. Children’s publisher Blue Apple Books will move distribution to Random House Publisher Services from Chronicle Books, effective July 1, 2011. Accenture chairman and former ceo William (Bill) D. Green is joining the board of directors of McGraw-Hill. Peter Costanzo is joining F+W Media as director of digital content. He was previously director of online marketing at the Perseus Books Group. Author and critic Wilfrid Sheed, 80, “the wittily satirical man of letters […]