The Wylie Agency is launching a new venture, The Wylie Agency España, with Cristóbal Pera overseeing the new unit, starting in September. Pera previously spent more than a decade at Penguin Random House Mexico, where he was most recently editorial director. Quarto will launch a new children’s book imprint, Seagrass Press, in fall 2016, publishing 12-16 titles annually. Overseeing the imprint is Josalyn Moran, who most recently was vp, publishing at Albert Whitman and children’s publishing director at Chronicle Books. Margaret Harrison has joined Ingram Content Group as director of product metadata (she was the ebook global supply chain manager at Oxford University Press) and Ed Spade has […]
International News
Indigo Improvement Continues
Canada’s Indigo reported first quarter results on Tuesday, with sales rising $4.1 million (CA) to $184.9 million, and a reduced net loss of $9 million, compared to a loss of $14 million a year ago. As in the previous year, “revenue growth was driven by the continued double digit growth of the general merchandise business” with “growth in both paper and electronics.” There was some growth in “the print business” on a same-store basis, too. The superstores had 5.3 percent same-store growth, while the smaller format store comps declined 1 percent, and online grew 18.2 percent, up to $24 million (also with double […]
International: PRH Australia Sells Bookworld to Booktopia; Harper Brasil, With Ediouro; Harlequin UK Layoffs From Harper Consolidation
Penguin Random House Australia has sold Bookworld, the online bookseller that operates two sites based on the former Borders Australia and Angus & Robertson assets, to their larger rival Booktopia. The sale is expected to increase Booktopia’s sales from $54 million (AU) in 2014 to an estimated $90 million by the end of 2015. Amazon is thought to sell $250 million to $300 million of books to Australia annually. Terms were not disclosed but PRH Australia had “paid less than $5 million for the assets of Borders and A&R after the collapse of their parent, REDgroup Retail,” rebranding as Bookworld the following year. […]
Merger Negotiations, Italian Style
After a 10-hour meeting, the board of Italy’s RCS Media Group provided a polite, positive but inconclusive step forward on Mondadori’s bid to purchase RCS’s book publishing division — a process which began in February. The board “unanimously agreed to mandate the chief executive officer to proceed with the negotiations and the definition of the contractual terms,” at the same time “reserving its final decision regarding the disposal of the asset.” With Italian August vacation looming, that decision is not expected at least until September. For the first six months of 2015, in reporting preliminary results, RCS said “publishing revenue remained stable, […]
For Now, Profits Rise On Lower Sales for Mondadori’s Publishing
As Italy’s Mondadori waits on today’s board review of their offer to buy the book publishing operations of rival RCS, the company reported results for the first half of 2015. Book division sales of 123 million euros were down 4.3 percent compared to 128.5 million euros a year ago, but EBITDA increased significantly, to 8.5 million euros (up 3.4 million euros), attributed to their “radical restructuring process” as they continued their “actions aimed at reducing fixed costs and cost of personnel.” They took 3.2 million euros in restructuring costs during the period. eBook sales rose 18.6 percent in the first […]
eBooks: Kobo in Mexico, Amazon In NY Schools
Kobo is joining with Mexican publisher and retailer Libreria Porrúa (with almost 70 bookstores) and bookstore chain Gandhi (with close to 30 stores) to power a new ereading service for Mexican readers called Orbile. They plan to launch an ebookstore in September with a catalog that will include over 70,000 titles. Both Porrúa and Gandhi will sell Kobo devices in their stores. Separately, the New York City Board of Education has a pending three-year contract with Amazon for ratification that will pay the etailer at least $30 million for ebooks selected by individual schools. Amazon will also build a “unified ebook storefront” for the […]