The Frankfurt Book Fair, which employees a robust staff year-round, announced “a restructuring program for its operating company” that will include both layoffs and organizational changes. “It is already clear that the existing structures are to be streamlined, for example by merging departments. This will also involve job cuts,” they said in a statement. The changes follow the cancellation of this year’s live fair, and continuing uncertainty over the effect of the pandemic on future events: “As a result of the COVID-19-related loss of income this year and the uncertain planning perspective, the available restructuring options are currently being examined. […]
Briefs: New Books From Franzen and Bridges, Chronicle Expands In Games and Toys
Forthcoming FSG will publish a new novel by Jonathan Franzen, titled CROSSROADS, the first in his trilogy, A Key to All Mythologies, in October 2021. The publisher writes that the novel is “the beginning of a story that encompasses all the ‘mythologies’—the political, religious, and intellectual crosscurrents—that have animated and troubled American life in recent decades.” FSG president Jonathan Galassi said, “Franzen has been universally recognized as the leading novelist of his generation, an inheritor of Steinbeck and Faulkner. He has been telling us the inner history of contemporary America in novel after novel, from The Twenty-Seventh City to The Corrections to Freedom, culminating now […]
Barnes & Noble’s Best Books of the Year
Barnes & Noble released a list of eight nominees for their best book of 2020, selected by booksellers across the country, from which they’ll choose one title. Among the picks are both Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half, and Rumaan Alam’s Leave the World Behind, both featured and previewed ahead of publication in our Buzz Books collections this year. The rest of the list: Accidentally Wes Anderson, by Wally Koval Pieometry, by Lauren Ko Stamped, by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi Untamed, by Glennon Doyle Wintering, by Katherine May World of Wonders, by Aimee Nezhukumatathill Last year, somehow booksellers at […]
Deed Shows Sale Price for Quad’s West Virginia Plant
When Quad sold their two remaining book printing plants to Bertelsmann’s Berryville Graphics on October 31, the details of the sale were not provided. Now the Herald-Mail reports that a deed recording the sale, filed with the County Clerk’s office on Tuesday, indicates that Berryville paid $11.3 million for the facility in Martinsburg, West Virginia. (They also purchased a plant of similar size in Fairfield, PA.) Bertelsmann Printing Group vp John Twomey, indicated that the Martinsburg plant has about 200 employees, as does the facility in Pennsylvania, with employment “down about one-third from pre-COVID-19 levels.” They add, “The major change […]
WH Smith Ends the Year with a Loss As UK Deals with Second Lockdown
WH Smith announced preliminary results for the fiscal year ending August 31, with High Street sales of £468 million, 19 percent lower than a year ago, which the company still called “resilient.” High Street stores lost £(10) million for the year, compared to profit of £60 million last year. (Using the new accounting standards for leases, the loss was £(4) million, but earnings comp to the old standard still in place last year.) In the first half of the year, pre-Covid, High Street had profits of £44 million — and then lost £(54) million in the second half. The fiscal […]
Bertelsmann Has Only Small Third Quarter Decline
Bertelsmann issued its characteristically brief third quarter trading report, noting “slight organic revenues growth of 1.6 percent,” with book publishing called out as among the “particularly robust” businesses in their portfolio. Companywide, third quarter sales were approximately €4.15 billion, down somewhat from €4.19 billion a year ago, but a much smaller decline than the 8.9 percent drop in the first six months. For the nine-month period, sales of €12 billion are down €800 million compared a year ago. Said ceo Thomas Rabe, “The economic repercussions of the global Corona pandemic continue to be felt. But we have managed to further […]