Another large exhibitor, Ingram Content Group, told PL the company will not attend London Book Fair after informing staff on Friday morning. Macmillan Trade US also withdrew on Friday afternoon. Spokesperson Erin Coffey confirmed the publisher “will not be participating in the London Book Fair, out of concern for the health and safety of our employees.” The announcements follow Simon & Schuster’s Friday morning decision to skip the event, and individual withdrawals by employees and teams at other houses that have made attendance optional.
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Simon & Schuster Will Skip London Book Fair, As Many Companies Make It Optional
Friday morning, Simon & Schuster became the first large publishing company to withdraw from this year’s London Book Fair. Spokesperson Adam Rothberg told PL, “After much consideration, and out of concern for the health and safety of our employees, Simon & Schuster has decided it will not be attending the London Book Fair.” He added, “Those staff who were scheduled to attend are looking at alternate means to have meetings with their contacts in the international publishing community, as they already do on a year-round basis.” With the cancellation of international trade gatherings, from Facebook’s F8 event in May to […]
A New Controversy, Over Rage Baking Book
RAGE BAKING, published February 4 by Tiller Press, has sparked controversy after writer Tangerine Jones said the authors coopted the title and concept from her blog and social media channels. According to Simon & Schuster, the book features “a range of voices to speak to all those who feel a sense of outrage over what is happening in our society and express their rage and their creativity through baking.” Edited by Kathy Gunst and Katherine Alford, the contributors include Ruth Reichl, Dorie Greenspan, Preeti Mistry, Rebecca Traister, Ani Difranco, and others. In a February 14 post on Medium, Jones wrote […]
Penguin Random House to Take Over Baker & Taylor’s Reno Warehouse
Penguin Random House will take over the operation and management of Baker & Taylor’s former Reno, NV fulfillment center, giving the publisher and its distribution clients a sizable facility to service accounts in the western US. The Reno location comprises 244,000 square feet of warehouse capacity, and joins PRH’s distribution centers in Westminster, MD and Crawfordsville, IN. PRH US ceo Madeline McIntosh says in the announcement, “We have discussed having a western fulfillment center for years, and now is the perfect time to make that happen. Creating a western hub in the Penguin Random House supply chain expands our distribution […]
Amazon Cancels Plans for New York Headquarters
Amazon announced Thursday that it has cancelled plans for its new NYC headquarters, after facing opposition from the local community. “After much thought and deliberation, we’ve decided not to move forward with our plans to build a headquarters for Amazon in Long Island City, Queens,” said the company in a statement. Long Island City was selected in November as ones of the locations for HQ2, but residents and politicians spoke out about the transit and real estate problems it could create, and criticized the $3 billion in incentives offered by New York City and state leaders. Amazon said in the […]
So Many Books, So Much Trouble Printing
2018 is notable for at least two related phenomena. The year began and ended with big nonfiction titles — Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff, and then Becoming by Michelle Obama –that sparked significant demand and had publishers scrambling to print enough hardcovers. That brings into relief a challenge that was present all year and will clearly carry over into 2019: Tight markets for both paper and book printing and binding had publishers juggling all the time to keep popular titles and steady backlist alike in stock. The issues look systemic, but paper and printing shortages were exacerbated by some of the […]