Rodale Books publisher Steve Perrine is leaving the company after more than 20 years along with Men’s Health editor-in-chief and general manager of Rodale Books and the Healthy Living Group Dave Zinczenko. The NY Post reports the two men “are said to be teaming up on a new venture” while ceo Maria Rodale told the paper Zinczenko’s departure “was a mutual decision, but we initiated the discussion.” Former literary agent at ICM Kate Lee has joined online publishing platform startup Medium as director of content in New York, where she will “be building a small team to help her.” They […]
International News
Trade Publishing Rebounds at Lagardere; Bertelsmann Gains on Subdued Outlook
After a weak second quarter, trade publishing sales rebounded as expected for Lagardere Publishing, with revenues of 626 million euros for third quarter. That’s a 4.1 percent gain over sales of 601 million euros a year ago, when the company had a particular weak third quarter; sales are still below the same period from 2010, and only gained one-tenth of a percent after the effects of currency exchange. Results were boosted by the release of JK Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy right before the end of the quarter, raising trade sales by 7.3 percent in the US, 17 percent in the […]
UK Committee Aims to Embarrass Amazon and Google for Avoiding UK Taxes
The British Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee staged a nice bit of theater Monday, designed to embarrass large multinationals that conduct significant business in the UK while paying little or no income tax–but in the end the government may simply embarrass itself. Testimony was elicited from officials from Google, Starbucks and Amazon, though it’s not clear that the committee has the power to compel these companies to say anything other than what they have already stated publicly. Amazon’s Brussels-based director of public policy Andrew Cecil declined to disclose their UK sales multiple times, saying “We have not disclosed those figures ever publicly.” By all […]
Indigo Falls on Lower Book Sales and Delayed Devices
Canada’s dominant bookseller Indigo reported a 5.9 percent decrease in sales of $185.6 million for the fiscal second quarter. Though the company sold their stake in Kobo, they still blame “a delay in the planned launch of the new Kobo devices” as the primary cause of the revenue drop. They claim “book sales for the quarter were down only modestly” yet the superstores sales comps were down 6.5 percent, and small-format store comps fell 2.2 percent. Their operating loss of $5.9 million was much better than a year ago–but that’s because they had a major writedown against Kobo’s goodwill last […]
Orbach Is Ousted from Quarto In Shareholder Vote
At this afternoon’s special shareholder meeting of The Quarto Group in London, company founder and longtime chairman and ceo (as well as 14% shareholder) Laurence Orbach was removed as a director of the company and replaced with Aurum Press founder Tim Chadwick. Quarto’s very lightly-traded shares closed up 2.5 percent in London this afternoon, on volume of just two thousand shares.
Popular Accounts of Pending EC Agency Settlement Lose Sight of Primary Effect–Which Is the UK Only
In another bit of clean-up, yesterday’s Reuters report–which simply reaffirmed that the mid-September offer from Apple, Hachette, Harper, Macmillan and Simon & Schuster to settle the European Commission investigation into the introduction of agency ebook pricing on terms very similar to the Department of Justice settlement in the US is likely to be approved–has added to the misunderstanding rather than clarified it. Reuters declares “that decision would hand online retailer Amazon a victory in its attempt to sell e-books cheaper than rivals,” which is echoed and expanded on in other press accounts. What’s missing is the understanding and acknowledgement that […]