Nicholas Brealey Publishing has bought Davies-Black Publishing, a line of books about business and career management, from CPP, Inc (formerly Consulting Psychologists Press). The Davies-Black list of approximately 115 books will continue to be distributed by NBN, which also distributes Nicholas Brealey in the US and Canada. Ingram Digital ceo James Gray is moving over to chief strategy officer for all of Ingram’s content groups, as svp Mike Lovett moves up to CEO of Ingram Digital. At Gotham, Patrick Mulligan has been promoted to senior editor. He has been at the imprint for almost six years. Melissa Possick has joined […]
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How News Gets Out of Hand
A number of outlets have misconstrued reports of small press York House negotiating for the rights to issue Herman Rosenblat’s story as a work of fiction–including a brief in today’s NYT, even though the online version of the story links directly to a York House press release. To be clear, the press is negotiating for rights to “a work of fiction…based on the screenplay, tentatively called, Flower at The Fence, about Herman Rosenblat’s life and love story.” Movie producer Harris Solomon (and his attorney), who controls film rights to the book, is the one negotiating the license. There is no […]
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Disputes Credit Rating Downgrade
Moody’s downgraded Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s substantial debt in late December, concluding that “shortfalls in HMH’s business plan” and cutbacks in US education budgets would keep the company from bringing its debt down to their target of 9 times ebitda. The agency “estimated that HMH’s debt stood at 10.5 times ebitda at the end of September, and warned of liquidity pressures and ‘a likely default’ under its senior secured loan covenants unless these were amended,” the FT reports. Additionally, HMH’s parent company Education Media & Publishing “was named as one of the European companies at highest risk of default by Standard […]
Stacey's of San Francisco to Close
SFist reports that “Stacey’s finally told its employees today that they will close shop sometime in March. A source in Stacey’s corporate sales tells us: ‘Venerable Stacey’s Books, after celebrating 85 years in business this last fall, announced to staff today that the store will close sometime in late March.'” The SF Chronicle follows with its own story. “The store’s general manager, Tom Allen, said sales had dropped 50 percent since March 2001. But the final blow was the crumbling economy, which hit hard during the holidays. Stacey’s sales in the fourth quarter of 2008 plummeted 15 percent from the […]
Richard Seaver Dies
Richard W. Seaver, founder and president of Arcade Publishing, passed away unexpectedly on January 5 after a heart attack. A memorial service will be announced in a few days. In lieu of flowers, Arcade reports they would be enormously grateful for any contributions to the PEN American Center. The NYT has an obituary today, calling him “an editor, translator and publisher who defied censorship, societal prudishness and conventional literary standards to bring works by rabble-rousing authors like Samuel Beckett, Henry Miller, William Burroughs and the Marquis de Sade to American readers.” In other personnel news, Lerner Publishing Group has hired […]
More Cuts at McGraw-Hill Education
McGraw-Hill announced “it restructured a limited number of business operations and corporate functions in the fourth quarter of 2008 to serve its markets more efficiently in the current economic environment while positioning the company for future growth.” Included in those cuts they shed another 215 jobs in the McGraw-Hill Education division, the hardest-hit of the four areas that were restructured. Those reductions came on top of 240 positions eliminated at the Education division earlier in the year.Announcement