Hachette UK has extended their string of modest acquisitions in purchasing Laurence King Publishing (best known for Johanna Basford’s coloring books). King himself, who recently turned 65, will leave after a six-month term as a consultant. Hachette UK has been the distributor for LKP. In 2018, the most recently reported year, LKP had sales of £16 million, with almost no profit. The gift, trade and art books will keep the LKP name as an imprint of Orion, run by Anna Valentine. Their student and professional books will become an imprint of Quercus and the children’s publishing will be part of […]
International News
China Literature Says “Lack of Resilience” Led to Big Operating Loss
Online literature and entertainment platform China Literature announced results for the six months ended June 30, with sales of RMB3.26 billion ($460.5 million), up from RMB2.97 billion in the first six months of 2019. Most significantly, however, the company recorded a major operating loss of RMB3.56 billion ($502.2 million), compared to earnings of RMB527.7 million last year — mostly due to the devastating impact of the pandemic on film and TV production and consumption. Company ceo Cheng Wu said, “The sudden outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and a complex and changing macro-environment had a negative impact on our business. The […]
People, Etc.
Pronoy Sarkar has been promoted to editor at St. Martin’s Publishing Group. Allison Sundstrom has been promoted to associate art director, children’s at Sourcebooks. Nicole Lyons has been promoted to manager of operations at Wayside Publishing. Events The ALA has announced that its 2021 Midwinter Meeting, scheduled for January 22-26 in Indianapolis, will take place virtually due to COVID-19. ALA president Julius C. Jefferson, Jr. said in the release, “In the last few months, we have successfully pivoted our delivery to present the Virtual Event in June and ALA’s Holding Space tour series this summer. Though we very much hoped […]
Briefs: Opening Trump Sales, Eason’s Layoffs and More
Simon & Schuster announced that Mary Trump‘s Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man sold more than 950,000 units in the US in its first day on sale, July 14. That sets “a company record.” (The previous record-holder was Bob Woodward’s FEAR, which the company had said sold 900,000 units on opening day in November 2018, and over 1.1 million units in its first week on sale.) A fourteenth hardcover printing on order will bring them to more than 1.15 million copies in print. Irish bookseller Eason’s will close all seven of their […]
Kobo Brings Subscriptions to Canada, Launches New Device
Kobo has launched their subscription reading service Kobo Plus in Canada, three and a half years after starting with subscriptions in Holland and Belgium. The company notes, “Rakuten Kobo recognizes books as the next frontier for subscriptions in Canada. Further, Kobo has seen demand for this service in global markets.” It is priced at $9.99 a month (CA). They say that in Holland, the program brought new readers and customers to digital (or at least to their service): “60 per cent of the country’s Kobo Plus subscribers had never before purchased an a-la-carte eBook from Kobo.” They say it has […]
Briefs
Donald Trump remains remarkably effective at boosting the sales of books he tries to block. As of June 30 Simon & Schuster told the court they had printed and started shipping approximately 75,000 copies of Mary Trump‘s TOO MUCH AND NEVER ENOUGH — and yesterday in a new afffadavit the publisher said they have printed and shipped over 600,000 hardcovers. Bookselling During lockdown Barnes & Noble refreshed about 350 of its stores, but as the NYT reports, the adjustments were relatively minor, “using small teams to move furniture around, paint walls and bring in new books.” Ceo James Daunt reports […]