Wiley has hired John Kritzmacher as evp, chief financial officer, starting July 1. Current cfo and chief operations officer Ellis Cousens, who previously announced his retirement at the end of fiscal 2014, will “retain responsibility for certain global operations and oversee the company’s $80 million restructuring program.” Kritzmacher, 52, recently served as svp, business operations and organization planning at WebMD and was previously cfo of Lucent Technologies and Global Crossing. On Friday at BEA, the Publishing Hackathon awarded first prize to Evoke — which maps how characters in fiction are emotionally similar to each other as a way of discovering […]
International News
Corporate: S&S Canada Gets Permission to Publish Directly
After more than a decade of waiting, Simon & Schuster Canada has received approval from Heritage Canada to publish local authors directly in Canada, rather than just import and distribute books from the S&S US list. “Simon & Schuster Canada has met its obligations under the Investment Canada Act and may now launch a book publishing business in Canada,” Heritage Canada told the Globe and Mail in an email. President of Simon & Schuster Canada Kevin Hanson said in a statement, “This will give Canadian authors more opportunities to be published in Canada, discovered by Canadian readers and made known […]
Sales, Comps and Earnings Fall at BAM with No Big Hits; Sales and Profits Drop for Indigo
Following the expansion of their store footprint over a year ago, Books-a-Million has returned to sales declines on both an overall as well as a comparable store basis. For their first quarter, ending March 4, overall sales fell 7.4 percent to $104.5 million (down from $112.8 million a year ago), and same-store sales dropped 6.8 percent. As a result, their net loss from continuing operations increased — up to $3.7 million, 25 cents per share, almost double the $1.9 million loss recorded a year ago. CEO Terrance Finley said in the announcement, “Our first quarter results were slightly below our […]
People, Etc.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg officially has declared Tuesday as “G.P. Putnam’s Sons Day,” in recognition of the publisher’s 175th anniversary. Bloomberg said: “The story of G.P. Putnam’s Sons has it all – entrepreneurship, determination, romance, big dreams. It is a classic New York City story, and on this wonderful occasion, today, we join Putnam’s extended family and many readers across the world in looking ahead to the next exciting chapter.” Michael Foster, who bought control of the UK agency PFD and merged it with his MF Management in 2010 to form The Rights House, has sold his shares back […]
Another Chance at Frankfurt, As PLC Moves to Tuesday (October 8)
Even before TOC abruptly closed their business, we were already planning to move our Publishers Launch Frankfurt conference to Tuesday, October 8 — the main pre-Frankfurt conference day — after a successful run on the slightly-too-early Monday, so that more FBF attendees can make our event a regular part of their Frankfurt calendar. Last year’s remarkable PLC Frankfurt featured 11 c-level executives from publishers and retailers all over the world and this year’s program will include the same unique, high-level strategic and operational analysis of issues faced by trade publishers globally transitioning to a more digital world. We’ll continue the […]
More on Granta Cost-Cutting, Exodus
The Guardian offers some much-needed details on the growing (and to many, perplexing) exodus at Granta, which began last month with editor John Freeman’s departure, followed swiftly by the resignation of three additional magazine staffers and earlier this week, the exit of Granta Books/Portobello publisher Philip Gwyn Jones, with additional departures possible. In an emailed statement, Freeman said that Granta owner Sigrid Rausing “decided a while back she wanted to run the magazine and books on a very reduced staff” and he “didn’t want to be part of that change, or the smaller ship, because I’ve seen us make huge […]