Jeff Tegge has joined Legato Publishers Group, the recently announced new distribution affiliate of Publishers Group West headed by former IPG chief Mark Suchomel, as vp, sales. Legge was formerly a colleague of Suchomel’s at IPG, where he also had the title of vp, sales. Christina Quintero has joined Little, Brown Books for Young Readers as art director for licensing. Previously she was associate art director at Grosset & Dunlap/Price Stern Sloan. The Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize is a newly launched award for the best scholarly book in military history. The prize, worth $50,000 will be awarded beginning in February 2014. The ABA announced […]
Earnings Reports
Sales, Comps and Earnings Fall at BAM with No Big Hits; Sales and Profits Drop for Indigo
Following the expansion of their store footprint over a year ago, Books-a-Million has returned to sales declines on both an overall as well as a comparable store basis. For their first quarter, ending March 4, overall sales fell 7.4 percent to $104.5 million (down from $112.8 million a year ago), and same-store sales dropped 6.8 percent. As a result, their net loss from continuing operations increased — up to $3.7 million, 25 cents per share, almost double the $1.9 million loss recorded a year ago. CEO Terrance Finley said in the announcement, “Our first quarter results were slightly below our […]
Profits Rise at Bloomsbury
Bloomsbury finished their fiscal year ending February 28 well, riding digital growth to pre-tax profit of £9.8 million (up 16 percent), even as sales only nudged up $1.1 million to £98.5 million from continuing operations. Underlying sales — excluding the Fairchild Books and Applied Visual Arts acquisitions from during the year, were down 5 percent, to £92.5 million. eBook sales rose “strongly” as print declined, up 61 percent overall to £9.1 million. eBooks accounted for 13 percent of adult trade sales; in the US they comprised “27 percent of net title sales, but UK e-book sales are accelerating and now […]
Briefs: People, Terms, Awards, and More
As part of Simon & Schuster’s move towards what they see as a “globally coordinated, strategic approach to our worldwide ebook business,” current vp, business development Doug Stambaugh has been named vp, global ebook market and development strategy, reporting to Dennis Eulau. In the newly created position, Stambaugh will evaluate opportunities for retail expansion, and new partnerships, digital channels and publishing initiatives, and develop company-wide strategies, policies and best practices in areas ranging from terms and pricing to DRM, technology platforms and new business models. “While digital content is firmly established as a significant portion of our business, the digital […]
Lagardere Publishing Rises On Strong Quarter In US and France
Lagardere Publishing rebounded in the first quarter of 2013, with sales of 419 million euros up 6.6 percent (or 25 million euros) on a topline basis, and up 7.9 percent according to the company’s like-for-like comparison. Hachette Book Group USA was a bright spot (following a soft holiday quarter to end 2012), up 14.9 percent, thanks to “a host of new works” and strong backlist film tie-ins including Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks, Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, and A Story Of God And All Of Us by Mark Burnett and Roma Downey. “As usual, sales of […]
After Layoffs and A Big Writedown, Cengage Talks Openly About Chapter 11
Cengage continues its slow march to the inevitable restructuring that has loomed for a while, and for the first time management has openly (and casually) talked about bankruptcy reorganization. The main questions now are who will lead that bankruptcy plan, can they organize a pre-packaged plan, and which private equity company will control what’s left? The latest step is driven by Cengage’s third quarter earnings report. In a modest “operational restructuring” they took a $12.7 million charge related to firing an unspecified number of employees. More significantly, the preliminary results of a new strategic plan and revised more realistic expectations […]