Even as holiday sales volume picks up in the UK, as compared to last year sales are consistently down 4 percent or more. According to Nielsen Bookscan figures, total expenditures for the four weeks ending November 15 were down 4.1 percent, while unit sales declined 4.5 percent. For the recent week by itself, total spending dropped 3.9 percent compared to last year.Bookseller
International News
Ricci Takes GG as Hage Is Shut Out; Costa Gives Barry Second Chance
Nino Ricci won Canada’s Governor General’s award for fiction for his just-published novel ORIGIN OF SPECIES, and journalist Christie Blatchford won the non-fiction award for her book FIFTEEN DAYS: Stories of Bravery, Friendship, Life and Death from Inside the New Canadian Army. (Both titles were edited by Doubleday Canada Editorial Director Martha Kanya-Forstner.) Rawi Hage’s COCKROACH was the only work of fiction nominated for all three of Canada’s top fiction prizes, but failed to win any of the top honors. Click below for all 14 Governor General winners (with prizes for writing in both English and French).CBC In the UK, […]
Toews Wins Writers' Trust Prize
Miriam Toews has won the Rogers Writers’ Trust prize–one of Canada’s big three awards for fiction–for her fifth novel, THE FLYING TROUTMANS. CBC
People: Shrinagesh Moves to RH India
Gaurav Shrinagesh will take over as managing director of Random House India, “responsible for the strategic development of the business and all publishing, operational, sales and marketing functions.” Shrinagesh has held a number of senior positions across Bertelsmann since joining the company in 1999. (Most recently he was the Hong Kong-based managing director for DSHK, part of the Direct Group.) Replacing Michael Moynahan, who is running HarperCollins ANZ, Shrinagesh will report to Brian Davies, md for overseas companies at Random UK.
Quercus Raising More Capital; Cheetham Steps Down
Shut out of traditional credit markets, Quercus is planning to raise 1.75 million pounds “in additional working capital and to strengthen its balance sheet,” nearly all of which will come from Pentland Group, which currently holds almost 20 percent of the company’s stock. Shareholders must approve a waiver from the takeover code, however, to allow Pentland to increase their stake to more than 30 percent. The thinly-traded company currently has a market cap of 3.1 million pounds, with the stock having fallen over 71 percent in a year. The immediate need is to refinance 775,000 pounds in loans that have […]
WH Smith Sales Slide
British-based retailer WH Smith issued a short trading update for September 1 through November, when same-store High Street sales fell 4 percent. They added: “Whilst we remain cautious about the consumer environment and anticipate competitive trading in our markets over the key Christmas period, we have planned accordingly, and the current financial year has started as we expected.” In other UK financials, sales at Canongate for calendar 2007 declined almost 4 percent, down to 7.8 million pounds from 8.1 million the year before, while pre-tax profits fell sharply to 271,000 pounds, 60 percent decline from the year before. The company’s […]