With the Frankfurt Book Fair cancelled, we are taking a preliminary look at the big fall “dealmaking season” a full three weeks after Labor Day. (Ordinarily, we chart pre-FBF deal trends according to the five-plus weeks between Labor Day and the Tuesday before the Fair.) So far, the market for new deals is looking strong…
Industry Statistics
Macmillan Will Raise Starting Salaries to $42K
Macmillan announced Thursday that the entry salary level in the US will be raised to $42,000, effective December 27. As part of the initiative, new ceo Don Weisberg said, current employees below that level will get a raise as well. “In addition to the benefit this provides to existing employees,” Weisberg said, “we expect this…
More Data for More People
For over a year now we have offered agents and authors the ability to follow actual NPD Bookscan weekly sales reports for up to 5 ISBNs, through a monthly “data package” upgrade — at the lowest price ever provided for this kind of data access. Now we are able to provide this package to an…
More Pub Date Delays
Every week we monitor pub date changes on our lists of notable forthcoming books (following roughly 150 books a month). Further to Friday’s piece on printing issues and a wave of pub date changes from Penguin Random House imprints in particular due to limited capacity, a few additional postponements have appeared in the metadata: Nonfiction…
A Big Surge In Publisher-Reported Sales for June Put “Covid Quarter” In Positive Territory
The AAP released their StatShot report for June, which shows a big month lifting trade sales — making up for the declines registered in April and May and putting reported sales up modestly for the “Covid quarter.” June stats were likely lifted by a combination of stores reopening and replenishing inventory, big releases such as…
AAP Releases Annual “Estimates” for 2019
The AAP released their separate set of annual “estimates” — StatShot Annual — on Friday, which we note for those who find these reports useful. As usual, we provide you with our standing reminder that, in contrast to the AAP’s monthly reports, these “estimates” are the product of taking real data and then multiplying it…