Books-a-Million has filed a preliminary proxy statement with the SEC in advance of a special shareholders’ meeting to vote on the Anderson family’s offer to buy out the stock they do not own for $3.25 a share (valuing the entire company at $50 million). A date for the meeting has not been set yet. The filing provides the first comprehensive and honest look at a company that has been in play at least since 2011 and also explains why there have been just a few potential buyers over the years. (Something like 40 percent of the company’s value is attributed to […]
People
Gene Taft will join Johns Hopkins University Press as publicity manager for the Books division on September 1, succeeding Kathy Alexander, who will retire October 2. Taft was formerly vp, assistant publisher at PublicAffairs and spent the past decade running his own publicity firm, Gene Taft PR. At Scribner, Kyle Radler has been promoted to publicist. Obituary Author, former book publishing executive, and co-founder of Common Sense Media Liz Perle, 59, died on Thursday following a lengthy battle with breast cancer. During her book publishing career, Perle had been publisher at William Morrow/Avon, Addison-Wesley and Prentice Hall Press, and she […]
People, Etc.
At the Andrea Brown Literary Agency, Jennifer Rofe has been promoted to senior agent. Marissa Litak has joined Sourcebooks as an assistant publicist. Previously, she was editorial assistant at Rhetoric Society Quarterly. The new issue of Poets & Writers magazine has Michael Szczerban interviewing at length 37 Ink founder Dawn Davis: “The truth is, we spend so much of our time advocating internally for our books, making sure we have the right cover, the right subtitle, filling out forms and so forth, that we often don’t have time to be entrepreneurial. But when a moment of clarity comes, it’s fun to pursue […]
New Leadership for Harper India
CEO of Harper India P.M. Sukumar “has decided to leave the company to pursue other interests,” the parent company announced. “A replacement will be named in the coming weeks” they said, and “Sukumar will be involved in the transition of the business.” In other transitions, Harper India will report to Harper UK ceo Charlie Redmayne going forward. HarperCollins ceo Brian Murray says in the statement, “Sukumar has contributed substantially to HarperCollins India, leading a dynamic trade business over the last several years and adding the increasingly important Collins Education publishing program in 2013. We are grateful for his contributions and wish him well in his future endeavors.” Sukumar […]
NYT to Make Printed Middle Grade and YA Bestseller Lists Hardcover Only
The New York Times is making what it calls “a significant change” in their children’s bestseller lists, starting with the issue dated August 30. The middle grade and young adult lists will count hardcover sales only going forward – positioned as similar to the adult fiction and nonfiction lists. The paper says the goal is to “better reflect the exciting range of novels for children and teenagers that are newly published.” Separate paperback and ebook bestseller lists for both middle grade and YA books will appear online only, rather than books from across all platforms. As a result, in the first set […]
People
Nicole Tourtelot will join DeFiore and Company as an agent. She was most recently an agent at Kuhn Projects. Former Hachette Book Group CIO Ralph Munsen has joined GroupM, the media buying unit of advertising conglomerate WPP, as managing partner and global head of development. HBG is looking for a new CIO.