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Random Announces Multnomah Buy Random House has completed the purchase of Oregon-based evangelical Christian book publisher Multnomah, which rose to prominence in the market on the strength of Bruce Wilkinson’s eight-million-copy seller THE PRAYER OF JABEZ. Multnomah will “be integrated operationally” with Doubleday Broadway’s WaterBrook Press in what will now be the WaterBrook Multnomah division, though each line will “maintain its distinct editorial identity.” The company will relocate to WaterBrook’s Colorado Springs offices. Multnomah founder and president Don Jacobson will serve as a consultant “during the transition and integration.” Waterbrook president and publisher Steve Cobb will remain in charge of […]

Improvement Continues at Indigo Canada’s dominant bookseller Indigo narrowed their quarterly net loss, down to $5.8 million (CA) from $8.1 million a year ago, as sales grew “across all Indigo channels” to $170 million, up 3.8 percent from a year ago. Same-store sales were up even more, by 4.5 percent, and online sales rose 7.2 percent to $16.3 million. Release Clients Flit Back to Clegg Since returning to work at the beginning of the year, as an agent at William Morris, Bill Clegg has reacquired many of his former clients (many of whom had not made new deals in the […]

Perseus Adds Consortium The NYT covers Perseus Book Group’s purchase of Consortium Book Sales and Distribution, officially confirmed in this morning’s public release. Perseus CEO David Steinberger says the acquisition “reflects our mission to serve independent book publishers whether those publishers are owned by Perseus, joint ventures or owned by third parties.” Consortium CEO Don Linn will remain with the company, which Perseus says “will operate as an independent business.” Now with over 100 client publishers, Consortium has grown considerably since Linn purchased the company in 2002 (famously inspired by Po Bronson, who interviewed Linn for WHAT SHOULD I DO […]

Penguin Hits their Modest Targets Pearson turned in a good first half of fiscal 2006, lifted largely by its big education unit, and Penguin Group delivered the small underlying sales growth and improved profits exactly as projected six months ago. Penguin’s pattern has been to congratulate itself heartily when sales grow one to two percent, and their 387 million pounds for this reporting period provides just that — “underlying growth” of two percent compared to a year ago. Total sales grew more, up from 353 million pounds last year, due to the transfer of the Brady Games video game imprint […]

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Hachette’s Quarter, Patterson’s Rights, Audible’s Results Lagardere presented their first quarterly results incorporating the acquisition of the former Time Warner Book Group, which contributed 98 million euros ($125 million dollars) for the fiscal second quarter. Total sales this period for the Hachette Livre group overall were 495 million euros, compared to 393 million euros a year ago — up about 4 million euros beyond TWBG. Though slight, that’s an improvement over the first quarter decline in the book division. By the company’s currency-adjusted calculations, they are up 2 percent for the first six month on a like-for-like basis. In straight […]