Two different pieces look at how independent store groups Books & Books and the newly debt-free Joseph-Beth are replacing lost book sales with other business lines. Both groups are looking at smaller-format stores as a potential route to expansion as well. The Miami Herald has a lengthy piece on Mitchell Kaplan and his evolving strategy for Books & Books. Kaplan has worked hard to determine the lasting value of what he had built, and use it generate more revenue: “Instead of feeling victimized by what was happening in the marketplace, I decided to look at the value we’ve built up […]
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People: Another Borders Executive Quits
On Friday, Borders announced via an SEC filing that evp and chief merchandising officer Michele Cloutier resigned on Thursday, June 2. In other Borders news, federal bankruptcy court approved its motion to reject its Seattle’s Best Coffee contract as of July 31. SBC can stop shipping goods and providing services on June 30. Court filing Literary agent Weronika Janczuk has joined Lynn C. Franklin Associates, where she will represent a range of adult literary and commercial fiction, non-fiction, and YA. Janczuk has been at D4EO Literary Agency.
People, Etc.
At Random House, Milena Alberti has been named vp and director of corporate development and strategy for the entire compay, while Ranjana Wingender has been promoted to vp business development for the Crown Publishing Group, a new divisional position. Josephine Hart, the poetry promoter and bestselling author of six novels including DAMAGE and THE TRUTH ABOUT LOVE, died Thursday of a rare form of ovarian cancer. She was 67. Guardian Obit Wayne Greenhaw, the journalist and author of 22 novels, died May 31 following complications from open-heart surgery at the University of Alabama-Birmingham hospital. He was 71. His most recent […]
Briefs: EBSCO and H.W. Wilson to Merge; Mirasol Reader is Dead; and More
EBSCO and H.W. Wilson have merged in a deal that combines the two publishing companies’ operations with the intended goal of improving services for libraries. Wilson president and ceo Harry Regan said in a statement: “EBSCO and H.W. Wilson have been engaged as business partners for a number of years and are now officially operating as one. The result will be a broader and deeper range of products and services for the library reference community with significantly added value. Both companies have had separate, distinctive histories, but have always shared a common commitment for the highest order of customer satisfaction.” […]
People, Etc.
New Zealand will be the guest of honor at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2012, running from October 10 – 14. At Random House Children’s Books’ Delacorte Press, Rebecca Short has been promoted to Assistant Editor. Acting register of copyrights for the past five months Maria Pallante will now officially take over the position on a standing basis. At one point in her career, she was assistant director of the Authors Guild.
People: Dolan Gets New Imprint at HMH, and More
In what has to be considered a case of turnabout being fair play, Eamon Dolan will leave Penguin Press for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to become VP and Editorial Director of his own imprint, Eamon Dolan Books, starting on June 13. Before he’d moved to Penguin Press as editor-in-chief in 2007 – a title removed with Scott Moyers’ return earlier this month as publisher, with Ann Godoff taking on editor-in-chief duties – Dolan held the same title at what was then Houghton Mifflin, editing books by Eric Schlosser, Buzz Bissinger, Jerome Groopman and David Sheff. The new imprint will concentrate on […]