Vintage’s editions of EL James’s Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy sold 19.4 million units in the US through July 2, and 31 million units in English around the world. US sales remain almost equally split between trade paperbacks (9.8 million copies) and ebooks (9.6 million units), the WSJ writes in an advance look at Vintage’s press release. Those sales comprise approximately $145 million for Vintage–but also closer to $225 million for Random House, which licensed world English rights. James’ books, reissued four months ago, have comprised as much as 20 percent of all print adult fiction sales in the US […]
Statistics
People: Ruppel Appointed President of McGraw-Hill Education International; Perseus Closes Vanguard Press, Jones To Leave Running Press
President of McGraw-Hill Professional since 2007 Philip Ruppel has been appointed to the additional position of president for McGraw-Hill Education International as part of a restructuring of the company’s international business. “Adapting to the world’s changing educational and content needs is critical to the success of our education and professional portfolio, said newly appointed McGraw-Hill Education ceo Buzz Waterhouse in a statement. “We must continually evaluate our structures and processes to ensure we are serving our customers most effectively. We will be enhancing collaboration between U.S. and international operations and identifying new ventures such as education services that can expand […]
Ingram Shows What’s Selling Well At Indie Stores; Codex Addresses the “Discovery Gap”
Last Monday’s Publishers Launch BEA conference was a packed day of data, insights and news (like the announcement of Tor’s DRM-free ebookstore) worth sharing, and now we have a chance to catch up a bit. At the PLC site we have posted slides from five of the presentations so far, open to all, and we’ll have some audio on the way later as well. One presentation of widespread interest was Ingram chief content officer Phil Ollila‘s new data–commissioned by Publishers Launch–analyzing how the rise of ebooks affects what is sold in physical bookstores. Ollila’s primary focus was to identify opportunities […]
Print Sales Rise 13.4 Percent At Reporting Indie Stores; ABA Gains Members for Third Year
As Book Expo America opens (for educational programming today, and floor exhibitions tomorrow), the American Booksellers Association reports to the AP that their membership rose again–adding 55 members, now totaling 1,567, up 3.6 percent from last year. That is the third consecutive gain for the organization; this time a year ago, the ABA reported adding 102 members, following their merger with the Association of Booksellers for Children. (In 2010 they added 9 members–gains, while always good, do not necessarily reflect a change in the entire store landscape, since not all independent bookstores are members of the national organization.) The current […]
People, Etc.
At Simon & Schuster Children’s, Angela Zurlo has been promoted to production manager for the Books for Young Readers and Paul Wiseman imprints, effective June 1. Navah Wolfe and Julia Maguire have been promoted to associate editor, BFYR. In addition, Richard Ackoon moves up to executive coordinator, Laura Roode has been promoted to associate art director, and Krista Olsen moves up to design associate. Knopf announced that in six weeks, they have sold over 10 million units (in all editions) of EL James’s three FIFTY SHADES books. They have printed 9.5 million books so far, available in 15,000 physical retail […]
Bowker Merges US and UK Consumer Research Brands; Random House Adds “Ideas Exchanges”
Following their previous acquisition of UK-based Book Marketing Limited, Bowker is merging that unit’s work with their US-based PubTrack Consumer research line under the new global banner of Bowker Market Research. That moniker will now incorporate their consumer research around the world, industry statistics, the UK’s Book Marketing Society, and their ISBN-driven bibliographic statistics in the US. UK-based Jo Henry will run day-to-day operations, reporting to vp Kelly Gallagher in the US, who will “continue to set the overall business intelligence strategy.” Random House’s distribution division RH Publisher Services is providing their client publishers with an “ongoing series of workshops, seminars, and collaborative […]