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Three Closings Three prominent bookstore closings were announced, but probably the most significant is Cody’s retreat from its downtown San Francisco location — despite last year’s purchase by Yohan. As president Andy Ross tells the SF Chronicle, “I bet the bank on that store. In spite of the location and the size, it just didn’t work. I can’t interview the customers who didn’t come. The customers who did come liked the store.” As for the Yohan deal, he notes, “It put some money into our business and it gave us some breathing space, but not enough.” The 22,000-square-foot store has […]

BN Finds Improper Options Grants Following an internal investigation, Barnes & Noble concluded that “there were numerous instances of improperly dated stock option grants… and that serious mistakes were made,” but the company says they “did not find any intent to defraud or fraudulent misconduct.” About half of the errors related to using “the benefit of hindsight” in dating options. The price differences comprise $45.5 million over 10 years, plus another $10 million at Barnes & Noble.com. Most of the gap will be accounted for by adjusting balance sheet items (retained earnings, deferred tax assets and additional paid-in-capital) rather than […]

IMPAC Shortlist The candidates for the 100,000-euro IMPAC prize: A Long Long Way, by Sebastian Barry Arthur and George, by Julian Barnes Slow Man, by JM Coetzee Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer The Short Day Dying, by Peter Hobbs No Country for Old Men, by Cormac McCarthy Out Stealing Horses, by Per Petterson Shalimar The Clown, by Salman Rushdie New Wartime Nemirovsky Book on the Way This fall Knopf will follow-up their publication of Irene Nemirovsky’s superb SUITE FRANCAISE with another recently-discovered wartime novel by the author, Chaleur du Sang/FIRE IN THE BLOOD. Recently published in […]

Announcements and Personnel News Barnes & Noble announced the third selection in their B&N Recommends program: Mohsin Hamid’s THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST. NAL is launching a new imprint, Obsidian Mysteries. Led by senior editor Kristen Weber, the line launches this September with both hardcover and mass market originals. Publisher Kara Welsh says in the announcement, “We’ve been publishing extraordinary mysteries for years, and this seemed like the perfect time to bring them all together under one imprint.” Former PGW client Bull Publishing has moved to IPG for distribution as of April 1. At the Book Industry Study Group, Angela Bole has […]

BAM Has Comp-Sales Decline, Too Books-a-Million joined the other big chain booksellers in finishing the year with a decline in comparable-store sales, down 2.4 percent on sales of $174.6 million. Net income rose to $15.1 million, up from $11.2 million a year ago. CEO Sandra Cochran says in the announcement, “It was a tough fourth quarter for bookselling. A strong fiction lineup was not enough to offset a quiet media environment, the absence of a major book related movie tie-in and the lack of strong non fiction bestsellers.” For the full fiscal year, sales were $520 million, with comparable store […]

Deal Reports Just e-mail to deals@PublishersMarketplace if you aren’t using the online form linked below. Report a deal using the online form The Key As usual, the handy key to our Lunch deal categories. While all reports are always welcome, those that include a category will generally receive a higher listing when it comes time to put them all together. “nice deal” $1 – $49,000 “very nice deal” $50,000 – $99,000 “good deal” $100,000 – $250,000 “significant deal” $251,000 – $499,000 “major deal” $500,000 and up FICTION Debut Nam Le’s debut story collection THE BOAT, for publication in summer 2008, […]