Former publisher of the Simon & Schuster imprint David Rosenthal will indeed join Penguin, where he will set up a new, unnamed general trade imprint. He will start there on January 10, reporting to president Susan Petersen Kennedy. Launching in fall 2011, the imprint will comprise “an eclectic mix” of hardcover fiction and nonfiction, including suspense fiction, popular biography, literary novels, humor, music, and contemporary politics. The goal is to l “ultimately publish between 24 and 36 original titles per year.” How many of those will be former Simon & Schuster authors? Kennedy says to the NYT, “he has a […]
Kids Color eReader Announced, with Houghton As Partner
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt announced a partnership with a local start-up Isabella Products, which is launching a tabletish color ereader targeted at children in mid-2011. Called the Fable, the seven-inch touchscreen device will use the Android operating system and is expected to sell for between $149 and $179 (plus cellular connection fees). “Several” HMH books will be pre-loaded on the device, and Isabella ceo Matthew Growley says they “have right now four other publishers signed up,” though he would not name them. (That implies, but does not state, that the company is thinking of a proprietary store and/or format. The device […]
Random House Offers A Big Part of Their Headquarters Building for Sublet
Random House is looking to sublet up to nine of their 24 floors in their office building on Broadway, comprising as much as 250,000 of 645,000 square feet. Spokesman Stuart Applebaum tells the WSJ that dealing with the Peter Olson-era albatross presents a “potential savings in the millions of dollars.” He notes, “We’re in the book business, not the real-estate business. We’ll reinvest our savings into our publishing.” (With an asking rent of $55 a foot, the sublet could comprise close to $14 million annually.) Applebaum says that approximately 30 percent of Random House’s office space is currently vacant. But […]
Lunch Weekly for Monday, November 8
Deal Reports Just e-mail to deals@PublishersMarketplace if you aren’t using the online form linked below. Report a deal using the online form The Key As usual, the handy key to our Lunch deal categories. While all reports are always welcome, those that include a category will generally receive a higher listing when it comes time to put them all together. “nice deal” $1 – $49,000 “very nice deal” $50,000 – $99,000 “good deal” $100,000 – $250,000 “significant deal” $251,000 – $499,000 “major deal” $500,000 and up FICTION Debut Alex Adams’ debut WHITE HORSE, a post-apocalyptic quest novel about a […]
Financial Crisis Commission Report Moves from Little, Brown to Public Affairs
In August the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission proudly hailed an unusual deal with Little, Brown for “authorized” publication of their report about the 2008 collapse that would provide the government with both an advance and royalties. Reports at the time said that five of the six largest publishers had bid, and Little, Brown was selected for “the intangibles.” But the WSJ reported yesterday that the original publishing deal “failed to close” for undisclosed reasons. Will Lippincott at Lippincott Massie McQuilkin, who co-agented the report with Joe Spieler of the Spieler Agency, confirms that Public Affairs will publish the report in […]
Sales Fall At Hachette In Third Quarter On Tough Meyer Comps
Lagardere reported third quarter sales in brief, with the publishing division’s “performance dented by a drop in sales of the Stephenie Meyer saga, and by a delay of a few weeks in delivering new secondary school textbooks in France.” They note that results are also lower “due to the non-recurrence of the sale of the international rights to the Twilight saga.” With sales of 634 million euros this quarter, by our count that’s down approximately 50 million euros or over 7 percent from 684.6 million euros a year ago. (They don’t formally break out third quarter sales.) Besides the difficult […]