The special committee appointed by the Books-A-Million board to examine the Anderson family’s offer to buy out other shareholders and take the company private has hired Houlihan Lokey as its financial adviser. Coffee House Press is partnering with Brooklyn-based feminist publishing project Emily Books, on an imprint for “books that speak to the aesthetic excellence, experimental boldness, and social concerns of both organizations.” Coffee House will publish two Emily Books titles a year, starting with the spring 2016 publication of Jade Sharma’s debut novel, Problems. Businessman Fred Tarter, in publishing since 1962 and the creator of enterprises from Hootenanny Magazine to the Burger King Kids’ […]
Finance
Barnes & Noble to Spin Off College Business As Separate, Public Company
Barnes & Noble filed a registration statement with the SEC to separate BN College into a separate, publicly-traded company, which will operate as Barnes & Noble Education Inc. They say “the separation is intended to be a tax-free distribution to Barnes & Noble shareholders and is anticipated to be completed by the end of August 2015.” Investors welcomed the news, with the stock rising 7 percent to roughly $26 a share in early morning trading, the highest it has been since 2009. The company politely admits that combining the once private BN College with the BN retail stores and declining Nook […]
Lerner Publishing Group Acquires Egmont USA List
What seemed like a premature announcement from Egmont that it was closing its US office at the end of January after giving their “attempts to sell” the unit only four months now has further clarity. Lerner Publishing has acquired Egmont USA’s list of nearly 100 titles, and will fold those titles into its existing imprints including Carolrhoda Books, Carolrhoda La, Darby Creek, and Millbrook Press as of April 30. Egmont USA will publish the eight remaining titles on their 2015 winter list which will be distributed by Random House until April 30, at which time Lerner will take over publication […]
Announcements: Quarto Buys Ivy; Maya Angelou Postage Stamp; Kindle Scout Launch List; and More
Quarto Publishing has agreed to acquire The Ivy Press for up to £1.3 million plus the assumption of up to £200,000 of debt, pending approval from the press’s lender. The unit will become part of Quarto’s international co-editions division. Founded in 1996, Ivy Press has been distributed by Thames & Hudson since 2012. Co-founder and co-owner Jenny Manstead used to work for Quarto, and is married to one of Quarto’s non executive directors, Bob Morley. Manstead says, “This is exactly the right move for Ivy at the right time. Becoming part of Quarto gives us a solid, secure platform from which to develop our publishing program with […]
Chegg to Outsource Print Textbook Business to Ingram
Building substantially on an initiative that began last August, Chegg.com will transition the handling of all print textbook inventory over to Ingram under a renewable, five-year agreement as the company that started as a textbook rental play moves towards becoming an all-digital “student hub.” (Digital textbook rentals will become Chegg’s biggest business, in which they compete directly with Ingram’s CourseSmart, among many other players.) Chegg is positioning the move as a full reboot of the company, whose stock has languished since it went public in late 2013 — in part because Chegg has lost money since launching in 2007, and those […]
Baker & Taylor Sells BTMS to Readerlink, YBP to EBSCO
A formal announcement is expected on Monday detailing a sale of Baker & Taylor’s Baker & Taylor Merchandise Services (BTMS) unit to ReaderLink, consolidating the latter’s leading position distributing books to warehouse clubs and mass merchandisers. BTMS is based around the assets acquired in bankruptcy from Advanced Marketing Services (AMS) in 2007, servicing the wholesale club business. ReaderLink is also acquiring the former AMS publishing lines (including Thunder Bay Press, Silver Dolphin and Portable Press) as part of the transaction. PGW has been the distributor of those imprints. ReaderLink mentioned the acquisition — agreed to some time ago, and awaiting clearance […]