Penguin Canada president and ceo David Davidar, considered to be on the fast-track to upper Penguin management worldwide (and named to the new post of ceo of Penguin International last year, with oversight for Africa, the Middle East and the India sub-continent), is leaving the company and returning to India to write and pursue “other projects.” After his departure, with no firm date announced, the Canadian unit (which had sales of over $100 million recently) will report to Penguin US ceo David Shanks. Canadian spokesperson Yvonne Hunter indicates this will be a permanent realignment, with no new executive to be […]
International News
Farbey Joins Scholastic In New Global Nonfiction Post, and More People, Etc.
Scholastic has hired Miriam Farbey for the new position of global publisher, nonfiction in their trade publishing division. She will oversee all children’s trade nonfiction publishing, reporting to trade division president Ellie Berger. Farbey was most recently global publisher at DK. Based in Scholastic’s UK off, she started June 1. James Jayo is joining Globe Pequot Press as an editor for Lyons Press. He had been an associate manager of foreign rights at Crown and before that was an associate editor at Arcade. Anna Bliss is joining Globe Pequot Press as an editor-at-large for Lyons Press. She was previously at […]
People, Etc.
Toby Ernst joins the Random House Publishing Group as domestic rights manager on June 7. She has been subsidiary rights manager at Sterling since 2004. Thomas Nelson is expanding their children’s publshing team: Molly Kempf is joining the unit as editorial director (she was a senior editor at Scholastic); Mackenzie Howard has been promoted to acquisitions editor for children’s books and gift books; and Jennifer Deshler moves over to vp of marketing and publishing process for children’s and gift product. Ullstein Buchverlage has appointed Barbara Tolley & Associates as their exclusive US scout from July 1 for all their imprints: […]
Kobo Costs Weigh On Indigo In Weak Finish to Good Year
The ramp-up of Kobo impaired Canadian retailer Indigo’s earnings in their fourth quarter (ending April 3), down $1.4 million (CA) to just $500,000. While the Canadian market has been more stable than the US or the UK, Indigo’s sales suffered in the final quarter as well. Working on a 13-week comparison to the same quarter a year ago, superstore sales fell 2.7 percent and smaller format stores were down 5.8 percent, while online sales declined 3.3 percent. (They reported a 14-week fourth quarter, and a 53-week fiscal year.) CEO Heather Reisman blamed “no blockbuster hit to compete with last year’s […]
More On that Quickly Restored Third Day of BEA
BEA’s hasty announcement yesterday morning that next year’s show will restore a third day of floor exhibits caught most people by surprise so it took us a little while to do more than pass along the basic news. When show director Steve Rosato wrote “while many people liked BEA as a two-day show, more people need BEA to be a three-day show,” here’s what he apparently meant. While anecdotally most US publishers were happy with a jam-packed two days of exhibits without the “tumbleweeds” as one executive put it of the third day, it’s the international exhibitors who were close […]
iPad Takes the World
Apple’s iPad released today in major book markets included UK, Canada, Australia, Japan, and Germany–plus France, Italy, Spain and Switzerland. Though the UK iBookstore launch was preceded by worried speculation that UK publishers were concerned aspects of Apple’s contract might run afoul of local pricing laws, lo and behold, Ye Agency Foure (Hachette UK, Penguin, Pan Macmillan and Harper UK) are all participating. (The smallest of the group, Simon & Schuster UK, is not currently participating and has yet to comment.) But no other UK publishers are known to have a direct relationship with Apple yet, and again Random UK […]