For us it’s that time of year when we are neither fully nor entirely off. Publishers Lunch will be occasional until 2014, as the news requires/allows. (We’ll be back at least once next week with deals and links at a minimum.) Publishers Marketplace continues to operate as usual, and we will report new deals, list new job openings, clip news to the Automat and post longer news items as they arise. If you’re tring to catch up a little, it’s a great time to update your contact info or refresh your member page. Don’t forget that our Launch Kids event comes up […]
News
Simon & Schuster Looks to Record Finish
Simon & Schuster ceo Carolyn Reidy dispatched her end-of-year letter to employees on Friday afternoon, noting that “If sales through the end of December hold to our projections, I’m happy to report that we will deliver record profits, a healthy gain in revenues, and our best-ever margins.” The company finishes the year with the quick-to-market children’s bestseller WHAT DOES THE FOX SAY?, and Reidy celebrates successful titles and new initiatives from across the company. Among those achievements, “we significantly increased our publishing activity with the ‘indie’ authors, from trailblazers such as Jamie McGuire, Jennifer Probst, Colleen Hoover, and Abbie Glines […]
Dohle Notes First Holiday As A Merged Company
Last year Random House ceo Markus Dohle sent employees an e-holiday card rather than a year-end holiday letter (after providing RH US employees with a special $5,000 bonus as a “thank you payment” — accompanied by a brief note — after record earnings from Fifty Shades and other successes). This year, in his first as ceo of the merged Penguin Random House, Dohle has sent a year-end note to staff worldwide. He celebrates that “merger distractions have proven no match for your passion for our books and authors…. We haven’t changed what we did separately – we are now just […]
Briefs: Grand Central Heads Near Rockefeller Center, and More
Hachette Book Group‘s planned relocation has become real estate news via Crain’s, which confirms the publisher’s lease of space at 1290 Sixth Avenue for occupancy some time next year. They are taking over a chunk of two floors recently vacated by Microsoft. The move will put them across the street from their old home in the Time-Life Building (and just north of Simon & Schuster). Booknet Canada and Nielsen have released a study (as a pdf) of the lift in sales of works by Alice Munro after she was named the Nobel Laureate in Literature in October. (The prize was […]
Amazon Acquires AudioGo’s UK Catalog; Kindle Paperwhite Rumors; and More
Amazon has a licensing deal to publish the UK back catalog of bankrupt audiobook publisher AudioGo, according to the Sunday Times. The deal gives Amazon (which owns Audible) access to at least 5,000 titles from the company previously known as BBC Audiobooks. In Amazon rumor news, TechCrunch says the company’s next Kindle Paperwhite will be sold in the second quarter of 2014 and will include a high-resolution 300 ppi screen, custom typography, and an ambient light sensor. A new BBC documentary set to air Monday evening provides a behind-the-scenes look at the working conditions of one of Amazon’s UK-based warehouses, […]
Still Going: Amazon Rebuts Line in Brad Stone’s Statement
After The Everything Store author Brad Stone responded on Bloomberg Businessweek to MacKenzie Bezos’s one-star review of his book at Amazon.com, Amazon spokesman Craig Berman took issue with Stone’s post. Referring to Stone’s line, “Bezos said that he married MacKenzie after searching for someone tenacious enough to break him out of a Third World prison,” Berman calls it, “Entertaining, and inaccurate. Mr. Bezos says ‘resourceful’ – not ‘tenacious.’ Mr. Stone knows that. He also knows that the correct word doesn’t work quite as well for his purpose. “Resourceful” and “tenacious” mean different things. They also have subtle connotations. You might […]