Alison Callahan will join Gallery Books on December 2 as executive editor. Previously she was executive editor at Doubleday. Shara Zaval has joined The Book Report Network as Editorial Manager of Kidsreads.com and Teenreads.com. Prior to moving to New York in September, Shara was a publicist with the Independent Publishers Group in Chicago. At Chronicle Books, Victoria Thomas has been promoted to associate sales manager. In the UK, David Higham Associates is taking over representation of the Anthony Burgess estate around the world. In awards news, the winners of Canada’s Governor General’s Literary Awards included: Fiction: Eleanor Catton, The Luminaries […]
New Wimpy Kid Starts with Over A Million Units
Abrams announced that Jeff Kinney’s Diary of A Wimpy Kid: Hard Luck, the eighth book in his bestselling series, sold over 1.3 million copies around the world in its first week on sale. Abrams ceo Michael Jacobs says in the announcement that sales “have exceeded all our expectations. We’re thrilled that the new book has debuted so strongly. This is just the beginning, as there is lots more excitement to come with the tours, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon, and the holiday shopping season ahead.” Nielsen Bookscan recorded sales of over 80,000 books in the UK, and over 387,000 […]
Amazon Opens Australian Kindle Store
Amazon launched a Kindle store in Australia, which lets people there buy in local currency instead of purchasing through the US Kindle store and is said to more prominently feature local authors and publishers. Multiple Amazon devices are now for sale in Australia in local currency as well, and retailers Big W (owned by Woolworth’s) and Dick Smith will carry the Kindle Fire tablets starting in December. Australian KDP authors can now get paid faster and more efficiently in local currency as well. (Previously they were paid by paper checks sent from the US, experiencing a time delay and often […]
Widespread Layoffs At Follett’s College Bookstores
On Friday, college bookstore operator Follett Higher Education Group announced widespread layoffs across their stores, eliminating 570 full-time positions. The memo from svp retail operations Bob Scholl was posted on a web site featuring comments from anonymous employees. The company is converting those full-time jobs into more flexible part-time positions, which the company strains to position as providing a better experience in stores for customers. According to the post, Scholl wrote: “Managers across many of our stores took a series of difficult actions tied to an important Follett initiative…. In order to deliver the hassle-free shopping experience that our customers expect, […]
People, Etc.
Giles Spackman will join Oxford University Press next month as group finance director. Previously he was senior finance director, global business organization, at Google. At Other Press, Robert Wicks has been promoted to publicist and Charlotte Kelly moves up to associate publicist. Dylan Hillhouse has joined HarperCollins Christian as vp, marketing for the Bible Group. Previously he worked at Mardel Christian Stores, responsible for oversight of the company’s Bible merchandising program. Author of the Arkady Renko novels Martin Cruz Smith revealed to the NYT that he has been suffering from Parkinson’s disease for the past 18 years, and that his […]
M&A: Kno At One End, IMG At The Other
Following Friday’s modest announcement of Intel‘s takeover of educational textbook start-up Kno, Om Malik reports “well placed sources who were in the know told us that the company sold for $15 million with some retention bonuses for the employees.” This after raising roughly $75 million in equity and another $20 million in debt. He adds that “earlier this year, the company tried and failed to cut a deal with CourseSmart….In order for the two companies to work together, Kno had to take on all of CourseSmart’s liabilities and at the same time honor its contractual obligations. That deal, which was […]