Pearson reported full-year results Monday, in line with the “trading preview” offered in January, and Penguin’s results were consistent with the recent trendline for successful trade houses: Sales of 1.045 billion pounds were up slightly on an adjusted basis (and down slightly, by 8 million pounds, on a topline basis, due to very modest strengthening in the pound versus the dollar), while margins rose to another new record: 111 million pounds, up 5 percent overall and 8 percent on an underlying basis. That leaves them with a margin for the year of a little under 11 percent, similar to that just reported […]
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JK Rowling’s First Adult Novel to Little, Brown
Little, Brown has world English rights to the first novel for adults by JK Rowling, the company announced Thursday morning. Little Brown UK publisher David Shelley will serve as Rowling’s editor and Michael Pietsch will oversee publication in the US. All other details–title, pub date “and further details about the novel will be announced later in the year.” But one important element has been settled: While the world waits for Pottermore and the Harry Potter ebooks, Little, Brown promises they will publish “both in print and ebooks.” Rowling says in the release: “Although I’ve enjoyed writing it every bit as […]
A Little More On IPG and Amazon
The story of Amazon removing IPG clients’ ebooks from sale spread quickly yesterday. Among additional details, IPG president Mark Suchomel told Crain’s Chicago and the WSJ that ebooks comprise less than 10 percent of the distributor’s revenues. And he told the Chicago Tribune “that the e-books sold through Amazon’s Kindle tablet account for about 5 percent of the company’s business.” (Their lists are not particularly deep in leading ebook categories like popular fiction and romance.) According to IPG’s website, they had 4,444 titles available in Kindle format. Their EPUB title count is about 500 titles lower, hence Suchomel’s exhortation to […]
People, Etc.
Webster Younce will join Free Press as senior editor on February 27. He spent the past two years in Berlin at Suhrkamp, where he oversaw the company’s English-language and international literature program. Prior to that he worked at Holt and Houghton Mifflin. The Paris Review has announced that Jeffrey Eugenides will join their board of directors. At Little, Brown Children’s, Lisa Moraleda has been promoted to associate director of publicity, and Jessica Bromberg moves up to publicity manager. The London Book Fair will present their ninth annual Lifetime Achievement Award in International Publishing to Jorge Herralde, proprietor and director of Anagrama in […]
Algonquin Hopes to Have Rosset Autobiography Ready This Year
Algonquin Books released a statement expressing their sadness at the death of Barney Rosset on Tuesday. The house has Rosset’s autobiography THE SUBJECT WAS LEFT-HANDED under contract (Wednesday’s Lunch misstated it as a biography), and publisher Elisabeth Scharlatt says, “We are very sad that he won’t be here to see his book published, and hope to release it within the year.” Bradford Morrow was working with Rosset on the manuscript, which has been in the works “for quite some time” according to Scharlatt. Separately, president of Grove/Atlantic Morgan Entrekin had this to say about the former head of Grove Press: […]
Amazon Removes Kindle Versions of IPG Books After Distributor Declines to Change Selling Terms
President of the second-largest independent book distributor Independent Publishers Group (IPG) Mark Suchomel said in an e-mail alert yesterday, “I am disappointed to report that Amazon.com has failed to renew its agreement with IPG to sell Kindle titles.” As of yesterday, Suchomel says, Amazon has taken down all IPG ebooks from its site, though they continue to sell print books from the distributor’s clients. (Our own check confirms that Kindle editions are missing for IPG titles, complete with the standard box to “tell the publisher!” you would like to read this book on Kindle. Individual Kindle hyperlinks now result in […]