Barnes & Noble announced the last step in cutting costs at the ever-declining Nook unit after the close of the market on Thursday. The company will close its offices in Santa Clara, CA (approximately 80 employees) and Taiwan (approximately 19 employees) by July, eliminating those 100 or so jobs. BN expects severance charges and transition related costs of approximately $6 million related to the announcement. In place of those employees, Bahwan CyberTek (BCT) will perform certain technology services for Nook, including cloud management and development support for Nook software. After the one-time charge, Barnes & Noble expects the shift will save approximately $13 million annually — cutting $8 million […]
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People, Etc.
Stacy Creamer will join Regan Arts as svp, executive editor on April 15. Most recently she was executive editor at Hachette Books and before then was publisher at Touchstone. Andy Hunter has been named publisher of LitHub.com, overseeing the growing site — which is a collaboration between Hunter’s Electric Literature and Grove/Atlantic. (Hunter also serves as publisher of Catapult.) Krishan Trotman has joined Hachette Books as senior editor. Previously she was a senior editor at Skyhorse. In addition, Hallie Patterson moves over to Hachette Books as publicity and marketing manager, from Little, Brown Children’s. At Chronicle Books, Molly Krauss has […]
HarperCollins Officially Expands in France, and More
It’s book fair time — as the Bologna Book Fair officially opens — so Harper Collins has announced another expanded international unit. This time it is the formation of Harper Collins France. Previously, Harlequin SA was a joint venture in France with Hachette Livre, but Harper Collins bought out their partner. They will continue to work with Hachette in an “ongoing partnership for distribution and sales.” (They bought out Mondadori’s share of Harlequin Mondadori in September 2015, and they ended their joint venture in Brazil with Record Publishing Group — pairing instead with Ediuoro Group, last August. The new business will continue to publish […]
Hachette, Ingram Close Deals to Buy Perseus Units
As expected, the sale of the Perseus Books Group’s two business lines — its publishing divisions to Hachette Book Group and its distribution business to Ingram — officially closed (on Friday for HBG, and on Thursday for Ingram). First announced at the beginning of March (after a cancelled attempt in 2014), the deals make Perseus’ nine publishing imprints made into a “major new publishing division” of Hachette under longtime Perseus executive Susan Weinberg, now svp, publisher of Perseus Books and a member of HBG’s executive management board. Ingram, in turn, will combine the Perseus client service businesses, which have 600 publisher clients […]
Ingram Closes Deal to Buy Perseus Distribution Companies
Ingram announced on Thurday that it has completed the acquisition of Perseus’ distribution business. First announced at the beginning of March (after a cancelled attempt in 2014), will combine the Perseus client service businesses, which have 600 publisher clients through Perseus Distribution, Consortium, Publishers Group West, and Legato, and their distribution facility in Jackson, TN, with Ingram Publisher Services. “We’re delighted to officially welcome associates and clients of Perseus’ distribution businesses to Ingram,” Ingram Content Group chairman and ceo John Ingram said in the announcement. “Ingram’s center of gravity is shifting to one that is more focused on providing comprehensive […]
Mondadori Rizzoli Merger Is Approved
Thirteen months after first making an offer, Mondadori has won conditional approval of their 127.5 million euro purchase of RCS Mediagroup’s Rizzoli book publishing division from Italy’s Antitrust Authority. RCS told shareholders the closing of the deal is set for mid-April. In line with the preliminary recommendations we reported on at the beginning of the month, the government is requiring that Mondadori sell RCS’s Bompiani and their 51 percent share in Marsilio/Sonzogno. The commission also is requiring a variety of “behavioral measures to stimulate competition in the activity of the publishing and distribution of books” that include the “waiver of the option […]