In Reader’s Digest’s Weekly Reader Publishing Group, the company is exiting two businesses that serve the library market. Their World Almanac Education Library Services “will close by the end of this fiscal year.” Gareth Stevens Publishing is being offered for sale through Broadwater & Associates. The two businesses formerly were part of WRC Media, a company that was integrated into Reader’s Digest in 2007 when it was acquired by investors led by Ripplewood Holdings.
Finance
More Borders Cuts: 742 Store Managers and Supervisors Nationwide
Borders is cutting “less than 3 percent” of their in-store workforce across the country, eliminating 679 jobs at their superstores, mostly by “reducing the number of manager and supervisor positions.” They note that “no changes were made at the general manager level–the top position in each store–but in the majority of Borders locations, one or two other leadership positions, such as sales managers, inventory managers, training supervisors and merchandise supervisors, were eliminated as the company resets its superstore management structure to correspond to sales volume on a store-by-store basis.” Similar changes to manager and supervision positions at Waldenbooks are eliminating […]
Weisbach Launches Management Company, and Much More
Rob Weisbach is starting a “new generation management company,” Rob Weisbach Creative Management, designed to “re-conceive the traditional literary agency as a cross-training development company–one that will work with new and established talent on all aspects of career building. Weisbach represented Norman Ollestad’s CRAZY FOR THE STORM last July. At the time he expressed little interest in serving as a full-time agent, but he explains that his new venture “is broader in scope and service, allowing me to take significant advantage of my range of experience as an editor, publisher, promoter, and entertainment executive. I’ll get to work with both […]
Random House Buys Ten Speed Press
Random House announced their acquisition of previously independent Ten Speed Press. Ten Speed’s four imprints–Ten Speed Press, Celestial Arts, Crossing Press, and Tricycle Press–will operate as parts of the Crown Publishing Group. The unit will maintain its editorial, marketing, publicity, design, and production staff in Berkeley, CA. Founder Phil Wood, who started the company in 1971, will serve as publisher emeritus, but “a new reporting structure for Ten Speed Press will be announced in the coming weeks.” Ten Speed has an active backlist of over 1,000 titles, which they have self-distributed. Random House will officially take over distribution on May […]
Barnes & Noble Sells Calendar Club Share, Takes Loss
Barnes & Noble has sold its majority interest in the Calendar Club to the company and its ceo for $7 million (comprising $1 million in cash and $6 million in notes). The chain will “continue to have a working relationship with Calendar Club.” BN is taking an after-tax writedown of approximately $9.7 million in their fiscal fourth quarter as a result of the sale. For 2008, Calendar Club contributed $113.5 million in revenues to Barnes & Noble, but the effect on earnings per share is “de minimis.”Release
Lonely Planet to Shrink Staff by 10 Percent
With travel (and travel publishing) in a slump due to the recession, Lonely Planet is eliminating approximately 50 jobs worldwide, or about 10 percent of their workforce, with up to 40 of the layoffs in Australia. Spokesperson Adam Bennett says “it represents the decline of the guidebook market in tough times.” Some reductions will come through not renewing employment contracts, and others from direct layoffs. (There will be modest cuts in the UK and US offices as well.) Acting chief executive Stephen Palmer notes, “Even the most optimistic forecasts do not predict any sustained recovery until 2010 at the earliest, […]