Now that the holiday is over James Daunt says that for Waterstones’ sales during the period, “I would have said it would have been down on last year” — an easy way of lowering the bar after the fact. When we spoke to him about the closing prospects for Barnes & Noble he thought the midweek Christmas would help give sales a solid finish, but for the UK he now says, “Christmas came later this year and every time it falls on a Wednesday you have to whack everything into the last four days. It was fine in the end, […]
International News
Company News: LSC Delisted By NYSE, China’s Publishing Chill, More on Dreamspinner
As anticipated, LSC Communications was kicked off the New York Stock Exchange, which is designed for companies of scale. Trading on the NYSE was suspended at the end of last week, since the company failed to maintain a market cap of at least $15 million for over 30 consecutive trading days. They also failed to maintain a share price of $1 or more. LSC now trades on the OTCQX Best Market, falling another 15 percent in the first forty-five minutes on Monday, down to about 31 cents a share, for a market cap of a little over $10 million. China […]
Briefs
Film/TV Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, through their company Escapist Fare, have signed a multi-year overall deal with CBS TV Studios. That deal starts with a limited series adaptation of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay for Showtime, but includes a number of other projects in development. Akiva Goldsman and Alex Kurtzman will executive produce Kavalier & Clay, and Paramount Television will produce (since Paramount Pictures owns the film/TV rights). Initiatives This year James Patterson will give holiday gifts totaling over $200,000 to Barnes & Noble booksellers around the country as well, in addition to his annual holiday bonuses […]
People, Etc.
Daniel Loedel will join Bloomsbury as senior editor, starting on January 6. He was at Scribner. Catherine Tung is now an associate editor at Beacon Press. She was an assistant editor at Vintage. Mary Gaule has been promoted to associate editor for Harper and Harper Perennial. Megha Majumdar was promoted to editor at Catapult. Associate publisher, sales & marketing at Catapult/Counterpoint/Soft Skull Jenn Abel Kovitz announced on Twitter that she is leaving the company in mid-January. The Gernert Company has opened a West Coast office in Culver City. Seth Fishman is managing the new office after three years in Los […]
Briefs: Neon Literary, Bloomsbury’s China JV, and More
Agency News Anna Sproul-Latimer and Kent Wolf have joined to launch Neon Literary, with offices in New York and Washington, DC. Sproul-Latimer has been at the Yoon Ross Agency for almost 15 years, and Wolf has been at the Friedrich Agency. They say in their announcement “it was the eventual realization that their clients were intersecting–on social media, at events, and in writing groups–that signaled to the two agents that coming together made perfect sense.” “Neon Literary is on a mission to dismantle the Big Ideas Industry, smuggling money, power, and frontlist glory out to authors who might not have […]
International: Haynes Puts Itself Up for Sale, and Bonnier Launches A Danish Publisher
Haynes Publishing, which is publicly traded in London, has decided to put itself up for sale, with Europa Partners as its financial adviser. Founder John Haynes died a year ago. Executive chairman Eddie Bell said in a statement, “The board now believes our future will be best secured by the whole group becoming part of an organization with the financial resources to invest for future expansion and take the company through to the next 60 years of success.” Sales for the fiscal year ending May 31 were £36.2 million, up 7 percent. Elsewhere, Bonnier Books will launch a new publishing […]