With Bookscan-monitored print sales up 11 percent in units through November and AAP-reported dollars up even more through October, trade publishers are lined up for a strong, and profitable, year. Multiple publishers have set new earnings records so far this year, as the pandemic-related increase in reading – including backlist sales, audio consumption and online purchasing – held, even as lockdown restrictions loosened in many regions. Based mostly on reports for the first three quarters — with a couple of recent updates — here’s where publishers’ march to a profitable 2021 stands for now: Bertelsmann For the first half of […]
Year End
Zauner Tops Libro.fm’s Bestselling Audiobooks of the Year
Libro.fm announced their top 10 audiobooks of 2021, “based on sales through 1,500+ independent bookstore partners.” Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner, narrated by Michelle Zauner (Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group) The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave, narrated by Rebecca Lowman (Simon & Schuster Audio) Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid, narrated by Julia Whelan (Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group) The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah, narrated by Julia Whelan (Macmillan Audio) People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry, narrated by Julia Whelan (Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group) Klara and the Sun […]
Simon & Schuster CEO Looks to “A Host of New Opportunities”
As Simon & Schuster closes the year as part of the newly re-merged ViacomCBS, ceo Carolyn Reidy writes to staff in her year-end letter, “This re-combination will present Simon & Schuster with a host of new opportunities as we forge close relationships that can both draw from and supply content to our new media partners, expanding the universe of direct relationships and pipelines that we have previously worked very hard to establish and maintain, and that over the years have yielded significant benefit. I am very much looking forward to seeing how we will be able to exploit the many […]
Briefs
Robin Richardson will join Tommy Nelson as senior director of marketing starting December 18. Previously she was vice president of digital for RFD-TV. The Noble Prize site has posted the text of Olga Tokarczuk‘s Nobel Lecture. The Book Industry Study Group released their 2019 update to the BISCAC codes (the detailed genre/subject codes that tell trading partners and their machines how to categorize your books). Penguin Random House ceo Markus Dohle shares his annual year-end letter of thanks to company staff. Among the company’s notable accomplishments in 2019 was a string of acquisitions and investments: “As one major priority, we long […]
HBG Marks Good 2018, Looks to Gladwell and More In New Year
Hachette Book Group USA ceo Michael Pietsch welcomed staff back to work with a summary memo, celebrating “another strong year in 2018” in which “our budget for revenue and profit and surpassed 2017’s results.” He notes that “our publishing divisions all contributed to our positive financial results.” It was also a year, as previously reported, in which the company “restructured for greater efficiency.” Notably, Pietsch reiterates that “our first goal as a company continues to be growth, and we achieved this both through acquisitions and internal expansion.” As for the year ahead, he indicates that Malcolm Gladwell will have a […]
The Year In Mergers, Acquisitions, and Finance
Though 2018 was not as active a year for publishing mergers, acquisitions, and finance as was 2017, it was by no means quiet — and reflects certain marketplace shifts towards consolidation and scale we’ve been paying close attention to for the last several years. Penguin Random House made with a number of modest purchases around the world, including the books division of Rodale, paperback publisher Hind Pocket Books in India, and a controlling stake in Brazil’s Companhia das Letras, while also selling off the app company Smashing Ideas, which was an early outside purchase under ceo Markus Dohle’s tenure in […]