HMV reported sales for the first six months of their fiscal year (ending October 25), showing revenue of 235.1 million pounds at their Waterstone’s unit declined 3.8 percent overall, and 3.1 percent on a same-store sales basis. The company notes that without the impact of last year’s release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, same-store sales declined just 1.4 percent. The bookseller showed an operating loss of 9.3 million pounds for the period, 4.5 percent more than last year’s loss of 8.9 million pounds. The company says increases in costs included 1.5 million pounds towards their supply chain overhaul. […]
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Perseus Adds Pay Freeze
Perseus ceo David Steinberger wrote to employees today about “steps we feel we need to take right now” as the company, while “successful, is also being affected by the economic downturn.” He announces “several temporary across the board steps that we feel are the fairest way to go.” The company is “suspending” annual pay increases and matching contributions to pension accounts, and will hold open all positions that are not currently filled. Steinberger adds, “We feel we need to takes these steps now, while making sure that we don’t interfere with our plans to grow the company over the long […]
People, Award News, and More
In the marketing and publicity departments at Tor and Forge; Phyllis Azar has bee promoted to executive director of marketing; Patty Garcia has been promoted to director of publicity; Brian Vaughan moves up to the new position of director of publishing operations; Joseph Bendel takes the new position of manager of publishing operations; and Jennifer Kaufler has been promoted to marketing manager. In the UK, Pan Macmillan non-fiction publisher Richard Milner will leave at the end of next week to explore “new opportunities.” In awards, the American Library Association has announced nominees for their new YA debut award for books […]
Random House: Free iPhone Book Promotion
Random House and Ballantine are offering free books to read on the iPhone via Lexcycle’s fast-growing Stanza reader. (The app has been downloaded approximately 500,000 times.) The works come from the backlist of popular authors such as Alan Furst, Julie Garwood, Charlie Huston, David Liss, Laurie Notaro, Arthur Phillips and Simon Rich, and include promotional excerpts for new hardcovers scheduled for 2009. The company says it is also “providing links to retailers like Amazon, Barnes and Noble.com, Borders.com, Powells.com and IndieBound.org to encourage readers to purchase more books by these authors.”
Penguin 2.0: Groundbreakingly Revolutionary, If They Say So Themselves
Penguin has pulled together a few electronic initiatives under the umbrella of a Penguin 2.0 mini-site, which does sport a fun logo (the zero is depicted by a Penguin, naturally). It gathers up the eSpecials program begun earlier this year, a promotional iPhone app launched recently, and a new program with SharedBook to offer Penguin classics with customized dedication pages (for now, the first and only offering is a paperback of The Christmas Carol–personalized for $17, versus $9 for the regular edition). Most intriguing is a forthcoming feature for next year, Penguin Custom, in which “you will have the ability […]
Firebrand Takes Over NetGalley
After a slow-motion launch earlier this year, Rosetta Solution’s Net Galley–designed as both an electronic galley system as well as a review-workflow product for publishers–is being taken over on an operational basis by Firebrand Technologies. Constructed as a joint venture called NetGalley LLC, Firebrand’s Fran Toolan will serve as ceo of the new entity, though most of the team that launched NetGalley will remain with the company. Toolan indicated in a preliminary bulletin to customers that Firebrand intends to integrate NetGalley with its title management and metadata management products. He says, “From every angle this seems like a natural fit […]