PEN America Cancels May World Voices Festival
On Friday PEN America formally cancelled their 2024 World Voices Festival, scheduled to take place May 8-11 in New York and May 8-16 in Los Angeles. They write: “The decision to cancel was not taken lightly and happens amid an escalating pattern of suppressing discourse in cultural institutions and on campuses. The event, and the very mission of PEN America, is to elevate writers and foster dialogue across differences. Yet we have heard from writers who have come under tremendous pressure by those who characterize anyone who participated in our events, as taking sides in the war in Gaza.” They […]
That Stat Isn’t A Stat
The discourse is once again reckoning all over the internet with a factoid from the PRH-S&S antitrust trial in 2022 that was not an established fact at all. The provocative Substack declaration — “no one buys books” — is based on an exchange during the trial that has been misunderstood from the start. The popular takeaway is a belief that the Department of Justice found that half of the new books published every year sell fewer than 12 copies in a year. But going by the public record, that was never a fact introduced as evidence or supported by documentation […]
Higher Ed Slides at Pearson, Still Forecast to Grow In Second Half
Pearson released a brief first quarter “trading update” in conjunction with the company’s annual meeting. Higher education sales fell 4 percent in the period, “in line with our phasing guidance.” The company advises, “We are pleased with the engagement we are seeing from both students and faculty on our AI study tools. We remain on-track to add this AI feature to more than 40 new titles for the key fall sales season.” This time last year, higher ed sales were down 5 percent. For all of 2023, higher education sales of £855 million were down 3 percent on an underlying […]
People 4/25
Lagardere Publishing Shows Slight Gain, Improvement in the US
Sales inched up at Lagardere Publishing in the first quarter, rising €6 million to €576 million, “thanks in particular to the success of bestsellers in the United Kingdom and the United States.” US sales rose 3.4 percent — after a tough performance a year ago — helped by digital audio, science fiction sales at Orbit, and Liz Cheney’s Oath and Honor. In the UK, where they publish Rebecca Yarros, sales gained 4.8 percent. In France, however, sales dropped 4.8 percent.