PeopleMary McGrath is joining Simon & Schuster as director of DSRM, Children’s Sales, reporting to Mary Marotta. She has been at Random House for 17 years and for the past five was the director of sales, adult mass merchandise. PW has named Amazon ceo Jeff Bezos as their “person of the year.” Primarily a rehash of things you already know, they do elicit a few interesting remarks from Bezos in an interview. Speaking of physical book sales, he notes that despite Amazon’s deep selection, “the vast majority of sales is in the top tens of thousands of titles, not throughout […]
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RBI: One Bidder Left
The Independent says that Bain Capital is the only remaining bidder for Reed Elsevier’s magazine unit, as TPG has dropped out. Facing a bid of about $1 billion–half of what they were hoping for, “Reed Elsevier is understood to be unhappy with some of the conditions of Bain’s bid, which includes a complicated earn-out structure – a move that would effectively tie key executives to RBI for a number of years.” They also report that ceo Crispin Davis has “invited” Apollo Group–which dropped out of the bidding earlier in the year (featured in the Sunday’s NYT business section for their […]
Revised HP Lexicon Comes to Market
When Judge Robert Patterson barred publication of RDR Books’ THE HARRY POTTER LEXICON, his ruling made it clear that the biggest problem was the lifting of JK Rowling’s words and the “almost wholesale” incorporation of information in the two minor charity companion books, Fantastic Beasts and Quidditch Through the Ages. The publisher and author have done the sensible thing–rewrite the book, using Judge Patterson’s decision as “rule book.” They will issue the revised Lexicon in January, with the new subtitle, An Unauthorized Guide to Harry Potter Fiction and Related Materials. RDR has withdrawn its appeal of the court’s ruling, a […]
HMH Speaks: "Streamlining" Underway, with "Reduction of Some [Hundreds of?] Positions"
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt confirmed today “it is moving forward with the planned combination of various of its businesses into a new K-12 organization comprised of School Publishers, Holt McDougal, Supplemental Publishers, Heinemann, HMH Learning Technology and International Publishers. These businesses were brought together with the acquisition of Harcourt by Houghton Mifflin in December 2007, and the integration process has been underway since that time.” They note that “the streamlining of the business will result in the elimination of some positions, even as new roles are created that will let the company serve educators and students in new and unique ways.” […]
January 2009 Indie Next List
Beat the Reaper: A Novel by Josh BazellSing Them Home by Stephanie KallosThe Little Giant of Aberdeen County: A Novel by Tiffany BakerTwo Rivers: A Novel by T. GreenwoodStill Alice: A Novel by Lisa GenovaThe Book of Unholy Mischief: A Novel by Elle NewmarkA Day and a Night and a Day: A Novel by Glen DuncanBone by Bone by Carol O’ConnellShelter Me by Juliette FayTinkers by Paul HardingCouch by Benjamin ParzybokNever Tell a Lie: A Novel of Suspense by Hallie EphronThe Piano Teacher: A Novel by Janice Y.K. LeeDaemon by Daniel SuarezMiles From Nowhere by Nami MunGoing to See the […]
Greyish Thursday: Add to Your List
– HarperCollins “plans to delay pay increases until after July 1, 2009…a response to the U.S. recession, according to spokesperson Erin Crum, Bloomberg reports. “HarperCollins hasn’t decided whether to eliminate jobs, she said.”Bloomberg – “Last month, John Sargent, chief executive of Macmillan, whose publishing houses include Farrar, Straus and Giroux and St. Martin’s Press, said in a companywide meeting that he could not guarantee that everyone would have a job going forward. Mr. Sargent declined to comment.” – Pearson has a companywide freeze on nearly all raises, which includes Penguin. – Bowker announced internally a restructuring in “a couple of […]