Yesterday Barnes & Noble named Katherine Howe’s debut novel The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane as their latest chainwide “recommended” title. Harper UK’s children’s division is making the same cuts to staff that were recently imposed on the rest of the company, with publishing directors Gillie Russell and Sue Buswell both leaving the company. But managing director Mario Santos tells the Bookseller “both Gillie and Sue have agreed to continue to work with us on specific projects.” But an update of the story says Buswell will join Random House Children’s at the end of June as part-time maternity cover for […]
International News
Quercus Still Growing, without Profits
Sales at Quercus rose to 10.94 million pounds, up 27 percent, but the house reported a consolidated loss of 281,000 pounds for 2008. CEO Mark Smith writes, “the disruption in the UK marketplace contributed to a shortfall in our anticipated Trade revenues and, as a result, total revenue fell short of expectations.” He writes that the first five months of 2009 have been better, saying “we are confident of achieving better results in 2009, but remain watchful and prudent in the current climate.” (Quercus should start to receive royalties from the US edition of Stieg Larsson’s novel later this year.) […]
eNews: Indigo to Launch Their Own Device
CEO of dominant Canadian retailer Indigo Heather Reisman disclosed after a TV interview today that the company is “in final talks with a number of e-book reader manufacturers and will be choosing one to launch as their own in Canada by the end of this year.” Reisman indicated that neither Sony nor Amazon will be their partner.CTV tech blog
Stake in Spain's Santillana In Play; Pearson, Cengage and Oxford Among Likely Bidders
The FT names Infinitas Learning (what used to be the education division of Wolters Kluwer) as another prospect interested in Santillana, called the “market leader in school textbooks in Spanish-speaking Latin America.” Owner Prisa could “sell up to 30 per cent of the business in a deal that could fetch up to ¬360m ($512m)” as they restructure their debt. The paper adds that “owning a stake in Santillana would fit with Pearson’s expansion into educational publishing outside the US, where the group is twice the size of any of its competitors.”FT
At British Conference, Ian Hudson Reviews Problems
Outgoing Publishers Association president Hudson of Random House UK spoke to the Book Industry Conference about “some of the key current concerns from a trade publisher’s perspective” and urged that publishers “address them together.” “The first and perhaps greatest current concern of trade publishers is the credit-worthiness of their customers.” The second is that “many small and medium sized trade publishers are themselves having to manage their own cash flow very carefully…. Indeed, some publishers I’ve talked to tell me that their ability to deliver their autumn publishing programs is being limited by the credit crunch and their difficulty in […]
World's Richest Children's Prize Launched, for Arabic Books
The new Etisalat Prize for Arabic Children’s Literature, worth approximately $275,000, was announced this morning at BEA. It is backed by the ruler of Sharjah and sponsored by the Emirates Telecommunications Corporation. The announcement sas the prize is “designed to preserve Arab children’s culture in the third millennium. The first winner will be named in November.