Following the merger of Penguin and Random House into a single global entity, a new corporate website is already live, complete with a merged company history and new @penguinrandomhouse.com email exchanges (though the company says the “immensity and technical complexity of the project” means US and Canadian staffers won’t switch over to the new email addresses for months.) In a letter to US staff, Penguin Random House ceo Markus Dohle said he has “learned a lot” from meetings and conversations since the merger announcement eight months ago. “You have delivered a strong performance over the past eight months, during a time when […]
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New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg officially has declared Tuesday as “G.P. Putnam’s Sons Day,” in recognition of the publisher’s 175th anniversary. Bloomberg said: “The story of G.P. Putnam’s Sons has it all – entrepreneurship, determination, romance, big dreams. It is a classic New York City story, and on this wonderful occasion, today, we join Putnam’s extended family and many readers across the world in looking ahead to the next exciting chapter.” Michael Foster, who bought control of the UK agency PFD and merged it with his MF Management in 2010 to form The Rights House, has sold his shares back […]
BISG Looks to Update Mission for Changing Times
At the close of Wednesday’s Making Information Pay conference, current BISG (Book Industry Study Group) chairman and Hachette Book Group president Ken Michaels addressed the importance of industry cooperation, particularly now that a simple “linear, rational, supply chain that we recognize and understand…no longer exists.” He asked, “the most important question I can convey from the podium today is this…. Can you really go it alone in isolation without participation in an industry group like BISG?” At a time when many have been intimidated about working together, even on common problems, Michaels said, “The important thing is that BISG continues […]
WSJ Reports Hyperion To Put Backlist on Market, Focus Entirely on TV/Film Properties
With each season Hyperion has been cutting back on publishing frontlist adult fiction and nonfiction titles that aren’t connected in some way to sister companies ABC and Disney, and a report in the WSJ Wednesday night indicates how far Hyperion is willing to go with this mandate — to the point of selling off its backlist. Citing a single “person familiar with the situation,” the paper says Hyperion is “putting its backlist of older titles on the market” and “will look for books either linked to ABC television properties or that it believes can be extended to television or other […]
HMH to Pull Second Lehrer Book HOW WE DECIDE From Stores
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt announced Friday that it is “taking…off sale” Jonah Lehrer’s 2009 book HOW WE DECIDE. In an email to the Daily Beast HMH publisher Bruce Nichols said an internal review “uncovered significant problems with the book” and as a result, has “no plans to reissue it in the future.” Nichols added that HMH will “shortly alert accounts about How We Decide and offer to refund returns” — similar to the approach taken when the publisher pulled Lehrer’s third book, IMAGINE, from sale last July, following the discovery of fabricated quotes — but that PROUST WAS A NEUROSCIENTIST, Lehrer’s […]
Harper to Move Downtown In About A Year
HarperCollins confirmed in a brief statement Friday what was reported as pending a month ago: The company has signed a lease for new office at 195 Broadway and they “anticipate moving in the spring of 2014.” Earlier accounts had them looking at about 200,000 square feet of space, comparable to what the publisher currently occupies.