Rinaldi Leaves Bloomsbury Richard Charkin announced today, “It is with enormous regret that I have to let you know that Karen Rinaldi, President of Bloomsbury USA, has accepted a very senior and interesting post at Rodale Books. Karen has been the heart and soul of one of the most innovative and successful publishing companies in the USA. She has been instrumental in building a great list of books, a great team of people and a great reputation for Bloomsbury. We shall all miss her enormously but she has left a superb legacy on which we can build and for that […]
Lunch Weekly for Monday, March 3
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 Game designer/scriptwriter Jonathan Howard’s JOHANNES CABAL, in which a snob obsessed […]
Lunch for Friday, February 29
Oprah Sells Tolle at Record Pace Following Oprah’s enthusiastic endorsement Eckhart Tolle’s A NEW EARTH has added another 3.45 million copies in print, “the record for the most copies ever shipped by Penguin Group USA in a four-week period.” That’s on top of an initial shipment of 776,000 copies in advance of the Oprah announcement. BN buyer Jules Herbert says “for the first four weeks on sale [it] is our bestselling Oprah’s Book Club title.” The publisher says over 500,000 people have registered for the 10-week webinar that begins next Monday night. LAT Nominees The paper announced the nominees for […]
Lunch for Thursday, February 28
Virgin USA in Flux Founding publisher of Virgin Books USA Ken Siman has resigned his permanent position to become a consultant to the business. He will continue to edit and publicize the books that he has acquired. The line, distributed by Holtzbrinck, was put in an odd position from the start after Random House UK purchased Virgin Books in March 2007, before the US division had begun publishing. Random UK’s Richard Cable says they are “absolutely committed to Virgin Books USA.” He adds, “We are currently talking to a number of parties and considering how to best structure the US […]
Lunch for Wednesday, February 27
More Free Book Fever: Now BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN Charles Bock’s debut novel BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN is being offered as a free PDF download via www.beautifulchildren.net/read, starting last night and running through midnight this Friday. (Sharing, emailing and printing are all allowed.) The free file is also available online via Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com, Powells.com and Northshire.com. Bock says in the announcement, “I want people to read the book. If that means giving it away for free on-line, great.” Random’s deputy director of marketing Avideh Bashirrad adds, “The book really struck a chord with readers as bookstore sales have demonstrated. We believe it […]
Lunch for Tuesday, February 26
Sales and Profits Slide at S&S Sales fell four percent in the fourth quarter at Simon & Schuster to $252.5 million as operating income dropped 26 percent to $27 million. The company says “best-selling titles… did not match contributions from prior year titles.” while the profit drop is attributed to “the decline in revenues and higher employee-related and digital archive costs.” For the full year, though, sales were up 10 percent, at $886 million and profits were up 29 percent at $88 million, improved in part by “lower bad debt expense.” Release Follett Buys Varsity, Cheap Follett has agreed to […]