The board of News Corporation formally approved the division of the company’s assets into two publicly-traded companies. They expect the spinoff to occur in a month, on June 28. As previously described, HarperCollins will join the company’s newspapers, education unit and other division in the New News Corp. which will — upon completion of the deal — be named simply News Corporation. The other assets, focused on film, television and cable/broadcasting, will name itself 21st Century Fox. The New News Corp. has already been authorized to buyback up to $500 million worth of its own shares once it starts trading, […]
International News
Jones Is the Latest to Leave in Granta Restructuring, and More
Granta Publications executive publisher Philip Gwyn Jones is the latest employee to be shown the door, leaving Granta this summer according to a company announcement. They now admit that a larger reorganization is underway after the resignations of Granta Magazine editor John Freeman and deputy editor Ellah Allfrey, to result in a leaner company. Proprietor and publisher Sigrid Rausing is taking “full operational and executive control of the company” and the new plan is to have a single editor-in-chief for the books imprints and the magazine. Rausing says in the statement: “The economic realities of small imprint publishing today has […]
Profits Rise at Bloomsbury
Bloomsbury finished their fiscal year ending February 28 well, riding digital growth to pre-tax profit of £9.8 million (up 16 percent), even as sales only nudged up $1.1 million to £98.5 million from continuing operations. Underlying sales — excluding the Fairchild Books and Applied Visual Arts acquisitions from during the year, were down 5 percent, to £92.5 million. eBook sales rose “strongly” as print declined, up 61 percent overall to £9.1 million. eBooks accounted for 13 percent of adult trade sales; in the US they comprised “27 percent of net title sales, but UK e-book sales are accelerating and now […]
People, Awards, Etc.
Longtime Barnes & Noble employee Brenda Marsh has left her position as vp, author relations, Publishing Trends reports. She can be reached at brendasmarsh@gmail.com. Founder of Hanser Berlin Elisabeth Ruge will leave the company at the end of 2013 for what she characterized as “personal reasons.” Ruge, who founded the imprint at Carl Hanser Verlag in January 2012, will be replaced by Karsten Kredel, currently head of translated fiction at Suhrkamp Verlag. “Hanser Berlin’s lively and unique profile will no doubt be developed and strengthened by Karsten Kredel – of this I am confident – and I wish him and my colleagues […]
Briefs: Court Hears Google Authors Guild Appeal, and More
For avid court watchers, this morning the Federal Court of Appeals was scheduled to hear oral arguments in the fight over whether to certify the author class in the long-running suit brought by the Authors Guild over Google‘s book scanning. Last year Judge Denny Chin approved certification of the class, and Google appealed that decision. We’re going to spare you further details until the court rules. Sony, which has sold its Reader devices in Australia for some time, has finally opened a Reader ebookstore there to go along with those devices. Price cuts on a variety of Nook devices — […]
People: Twelve Adds An Editorial Director, As Does Knopf, and More
Following Deb Futter’s appointment as publisher of Grand Central’s Twelve imprint in April, Sean Desmond will join the line in the new position of editorial director, starting May 28. He is currently an executive editor at Crown. Futter says in the announcement, “When I became Publisher of Twelve, my first order of business was to hire a top-notch editorial director who would work with me to define the next era at Twelve. In Sean Desmond, I could not have found a more perfect fit in terms of acquisitions and vision.” Knopf announced two editorial promotions, both effective immediately. Robin Desser […]