The UK’s Quercus Publishing is create a new fiction imprint for the US market called Silver Oak, in a joint venture with Sterling Publishing. Quercus will select titles from their list, and Sterling will market and distribute in North America. The initial deal is for three years and the line will launch in January 2011 with Swedish authors Roslund and Hellström’s THREE SECONDS (a bestseller in Sweden, recently named that country’s crime novel of the year.) Quercus ceo Mark Smithsays in the announcement, “This partnership with one of North America’s leading publishing companies will give us access to the world’s […]
International News
More Imprint News: Voyager Expands, Touchstone Drops Fireside
HarperCollins will rebrand its Eos imprint in the US as Voyager–a name the company already uses for similar sci-fi, fantasy and horror publishing in the UK and Australia/New Zealand. The change will take place with their January 2011 releases. CEo Brian Murray says in the announcement, “uniting our sister companies in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia/New Zealand allows readers globally unparalleled access to books and authors. This move enables us to offer authors a strong global publishing platform when signing with HarperCollins — whether the acquiring editor is in New York, Sydney, or London.” Simon & Schuster’s Touchstone […]
Blair’s Book JOURNEY Begins
Tony Blair garners considerable coverage on both sides of the Atlantic following the release today of A JOURNEY: My Political Life. The book is expected to rank as the bestselling UK political memoir ever. Released at the steep fake list price 25 pounds, the press is yet again surprised that the book is already deeply discounted. (Blooomberg has an amusing typo, listing the 720-page book as weighing 25 pounds.) As promised, the book offers the closest thing to candor you can expect from a former leader, as he admits to deep emotions over the UK’s participation in the Iraq war […]
People
Hachette UK has hired Matthew Cashmore for the new position of digital director, charged with evaluating their digital strategy and finding new online revenue streams. He was innovation and ecosystem manager at Lonely Planet.
Sales and Profits Rebound At Random House
Random House reported sales for the first half of the year of 791 million euros, up 57 million euros (or almost 8 percent) from a year ago, as operating EBIT doubled to a still-modest margin of 40 million euros. CEO Markus Dohle writes that “our performance was led by the US division, which combined bestseller dominance with lower physical returns.” Stieg Larsson’s sales of 6.5 million copies in the US and Germany were a “substantial” factor in the improved results. Dohle also points to the company’s “robust digital-publishing momentum.” He says that within the fiscal year, worldwide digital sales will […]
Paper Claims Investors May Push for Waterstone’s Spin-Off
The UK offers two grain-of-salt stories today. In the first, the Guardian has suddenly noticed that leading bookselling chain Waterstone’s has been struggling and declares that “rebel shareholders” want HMV to consider selling the unit if margins do not improve soon. Who are these rebels and what kind of stake do they hold? Um, they cite one anonymous shareholder, “”Although Waterstone’s accounts for around a quarter of HMV’s turnover, it has a perfectly viable business without books. The day of reckoning is fast approaching.” And a second unnamed “investor” (which is different how from a shareholder?) says, “another investor said: […]