Sales at Torstar’s Harlequin unit fell in their first quarter, ending March 31, at $113 million down more than 9 percent from $124.5 million a year ago. EBITDA rose over 9 percent, though, to $23.7 million. The company says North American retail and overseas sales fell, as digital revenues had “strong growth.” In a bit of a paradox, the rising Canadian dollar accounts for $10 million of the drop in sales, but foreign exchange also contributed to the rise in profits.Release
People, Etc.
Skira Rizzoli Publications has hired Margaret Rennolds Chace as associate publisher, reporting to Charles Miers, starting next week. Most recently she was managing editor of publications at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. At the New York Times, Julie Bosman is taking over as the reporter covering book publishing. At Harper Children’s, Mary-Kate Gaudet has been promoted to editor. With the flooding in Nashville, TN, we heard concerns about the potential personal and business impact. Spokesman for the Ingram Book Company Keel Hunt replies to our query: “CEO Skip Prichard reports there has been no flood damage at Ingram facilities, and […]
Not the News: Little Change In Google Editions Launch Date
The WSJ got wide pick-up for revealing something already announced: “Google will begin selling digital books as early as late June or July, a company representative [Chris Palma] said Tuesday” at a BISG event. Just as Google’s Roland Lange said at a conference in early March that the service would launch…in June.WSJ
Harper Returns to Slim Profit in Third Quarter
Sales at HarperCollins rose 13.5 percent to $276 in their fiscal third quarter ending March 31, as operating income turned positive again at $4 million after an $8 million loss (plus a $30 million restructuring charge) in the same period a year ago. While an improvement, note that two years ago in the same quarter Harper had sales of $302 million and operating income of $29 million. As usual, Harper UK proudly points out to the local trade press that they “did outperform the market,” the most positive way of saying that sales declined, but not by the six percent […]
Amazon Pays Referrals on Kindle Books; As iPad Soars, Two Other Tablets Are Spiked
Amazon told the company’s “associates” by e-mail that as of May 1 they are paying “advertising fees” (their name for referral commissions) on Kindle book sales (and magazine, newspaper and blog subscriptions) for the first time since the launch of the store. Those fees range from 4 percent to 8.5 percent. At the same, they are reducing the fees paid on Kindle device sales to the same range of 4 percent to 8.5 percent. In an interesting but unconfirmed side-effect, it looks as if Amazon has restored Kindle data to their web services program as part of the new sales […]
At Least Some Canadian Booksellers Ask Government to Lift Import Restrictions
The Canadian Booksellers Association said in a release last week that parallel import restrictions on books from publishers outside of Canada are “no longer commercially reasonable and should be repealed.” CBA vice president Mark Lefebvre told Quill & Quire that the current law, particularly given the strong Canadian dollar, is “a tariff on the Canadian book-buying public.” Part of the booksellers’ argument is that customers are driven to purchase cheaper editions from US online sellers. Canadian books are generally priced higher in Canadian dollars, so that when their currency reaches parity with the US dollar the Canadian editions are considerably […]