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Charkin Moves to Bloomsbury, and Much More Personnel News Blogging Macmillan ceo Richard Charkin is leaving the company to become an executive director at Bloomsbury on the company’s board as of October 1, where he will have “responsibility for operations worldwide and with particular focus on spearheading growth through acquisitions, new publishing areas and international expansion.” He says in parting: “It has been the best ten years of my career. I have been able to work in a company with strong values and traditions owned by a family committed to quality, innovation and autonomy. “The decade has seen significant growth […]

Watching the Numbers Nielsen Bookscan figures updated today show opening week sales of over 128,000 copies in the outlets they track for Alan Greenspan’s THE AGE OF TURBULENCE. In its first full week on sale, IF I DID IT moved almost 33,000 copies according to Nielsen (following the sale of 10,000 copies in the first few days the prior week). Bill Clinton’s GIVING has fallen off to just over 19,000 copies for the week, with sales of slightly more than 100,000 copies overall so far. Knopf spokesman Paul Bogaards remarked that “when the president is out there talking about the […]

This Week’s Unsung Big Book It doesn’t make a lot of “fall preview” lists, but today’s launch of Prima Games’ trade paperback HALO 3: The Official Guide is likely to register an impressive first-day sale as the final installment of the video game goes on sale. Called “the most anticipated game in history,” the game has already logged over 1 million pre-orders and is expected to sell 4 million units in the first 60 days. Prima’s tie-in to the release of Halo 2 in 2004 sold 270,000 copies in its first day on sale, over 600,000 copies in the first […]

NBF’s 5 Under 35 The National Book Foundation announced their first “5 Under 35” honorees — “selected by a previous National Book Award Finalist or Winner as someone whose work is particularly promising and exciting and is among the best of a new generation of writers”: Kirstin Allio, author of Garner (Coffee House Press, 2005) Dinaw Mengestu, The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears (Riverhead Books, 2007) Asali Solomon, Get Down: Stories (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006) Anya Ulinich, Petropolis (Viking Press, 2007) Charles Yu, Third Class Superhero (Harcourt, 2006) Another One For Vintage As usual, we don’t know which book […]

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 Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani’s I DO NOT COME TO YOU BY CHANCE, […]

Borders Doesn’t Get Much for UK Stores Borders agreed to sell their stores in the UK and Ireland to private equity group Risk Capital Partners’ new subsidiary Bookshop Acquisitions for a paltry 10 million pounds in cash. There is another 10 million pounds of “deferred cash consideration, contingent on the future performance of the business” on the table, and Borders will keep a stake of approximately 17 percent in the new company. They told investors they will take an after-tax loss of “approximately $115 million with minimal tax benefit” in their third quarter. Current Borders UK top executive David Roche […]