Macmillan is the latest large publishing house to reorganize its sales force, telling us they “will be making a small number of sales staff reductions at the end of the year.” President of sales Alison Lazarus said that six employees would be leaving the company, with an additional staffer set to retire by year’s end. Macmillan is reducing staff “reluctantly” but “the marketplace and the decline in physical book sales necessitates a reorganization.” The children’s sales group, however, will be “adding 3 additional heads” by the end of the year or early next year as it is “a growing part” […]
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Book Country Launches Self-Publishing Platform
Penguin’s online genre community Book Country will launch an array of tools for authors to self-publish their work beginning on Wednesday, debuting in tandem with a redesign of their website. Book Country is offering three publishing packages to authors who wish to self-publish within the genres of romance, mystery/thriller, and science fiction & fantasy: a digital book with user-formatting based on a Microsoft Word file for $99, a package that adds POD printed books for $299, and a “professional” package for which Book Country creates “polished print and ePub files” from among “six different elegant interior styles,” for $549. (Book Country […]
Union Plans Rally By Harper Offices
The United Auto Workers Local 2110 plans a lunchtime rally outside of HarperCollins’ midtown Manhattan offices on Wednesday, November 16, according to a flier found by the NY Observer. They intend to protest “the elimination of guaranteed wage increases, the rising cost of health benefits and other issues.” Harper spokesperson Erin Crum says that the company is in the midst of negotiating its union labor contract. “We are offering a very fair and competitive package, one that will continue to make HarperCollins a great place to work for all our employees. We are committed to bargaining in good faith, and […]
S&S Shifts Sales & Marketing Focus To Digital, Cuts Sales Positions
Simon & Schuster is creating a dedicated digital sales team as well as a new retail sales force comprised of national accounts, field sales and telemarketing. The company is also pursuing what ceo Carolyn Reidy calls an “even greater focus on marketing, at both the imprint and the corporate level.” New marketing staff will be added to each of the company’s imprints, and the children’s marketing team will move back to the children’s division. Liz Perl will now report directly to Reidy, and the company’s digital group under Ellie Hirschhorn will add “responsibility for our corporate social media efforts, and […]
RLJ Equity Partners Acquires Parent Company of LJ, SLJ and Horn Book
Media Source Inc., the parent company of Library Journal, School Library Journal, The Horn Book and the Junior Library Guild, was sold to RLJ Equity Partners, one of the hedge funds created by Black Entertainment Television founder Robert L. Johnson. 21st Century Group, LLC and New Canaan Funding Mezzanine, LLC also took part in the deal, for which terms were not disclosed. LJ and SLJ had been acquired by Media Source in early 2010; Media Source was in turn previously owned by Riverside Company, which bought them in 2007. Media Source had been on the block for a while, according […]
HarperCollins Paid $200M To Acquire Thomas Nelson
News Corp disclosed in its quarterly 10-Q report on Friday that HarperCollins acquired Thomas Nelson for $200 million, and that the deal took place in October. The number is less than half the $473 million former owner InterMedia paid for Thomas Nelson back in 2006. The filing also disclosed that HarperCollins is now subject to 23 different consumer class action suits filed in New York and California relating to purported anti-trust issues and the use of the agency model by the six largest publishing houses. The defendants, including HarperCollins, filed a motion with the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation to […]