Our Colbert Report Check out the PM.com home page for our clip package focusing on Stephen Colbert’s winning performance at Saturday’s BEA breakfast, along with his interactions with the other panelists. Click over to the Publishers Lunch TV page for Christopher Hitchens’ unscripted interview, just added alongside the Ken Lombard/Chris Anderson interview and our PL interviews with Susan Kennedy, Carl Bernstein and others. Later today we will add the interview with Borders CEO George Jones — where only 30 attendees saw most people’s second-biggest customer in person. (Can you imagine Len or Steve speaking at BEA and having an audience […]

Preambles So I’m still exhausted, with too much to do and more stories to catch up on, so please excuse typos and other mistakes. The biggest mistake is that I embedded the wrong link last night for the Publishers Lunch Jr. blog which you don’t want to miss. Already they share in the Spiderwick excitement, discover a new Alex Rider, stumble upon something they think might be “Webkinz for books,” talk about a new book in a series that’s already big with the fourth-graders, dig into the new Lloyd Alexander, and plenty more. They hope to add more updates after […]

Greenspan Plays BEA Alan Greenspan certainly filled the special events hall at the end of the day at Javits yesterday (which fortunately contained one of the few pockets of functioning air-conditioning anywhere in the the facility — acknowledging the insufferable conditions, show manager Lance Fensterman said, “When I promised the show would be a hot event, apparently the Javits facility people took me literally. I’ve been assured that won’t be a problem tomorrow.). The interview/conversation with his wife, NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell revealed only a few hints of what to expect from the book. Greenspan said that, after contemplating a […]

If You Thought a 180,000-Title Universe Was Daunting Bowker has changed the methodology they use to count new titles issued every year, and the result has been a dramatic change upward in their estimates of titles published annually — which they now put at 291,920. No, that’s not a typo. That’s an incease of 120,000 over the old methodology and last year’s numbers (which some industry players thought there were inaccurately low), including  “traditional print as well as on-demand titles.” But the high-water mark, under the recalibrated data, was in 2004, with 295,523 new titles issued. Having revised 2005’s numbers […]

BEA multi-tasking (and news flow) has begun. This is, as will become obvious, not proofred. Bowen to Start Imprint at Harper Former editor-in-chief of Disney Children’s book group Brenda Bowen will set up a new children’s imprint at HarperCollins Children’s, starting June 18 as vp/publisher. She will “focus on attracting new authors and artists” and will also look for “graphic novels, books on cultural trends, and titles with global reach.” Bowen says in the announcement, “HarperCollins offers authors and illustrators the opportunity to publish successfully in every channel of the market. This boutique imprint will strive to publish both the […]

Comps Down at Other Chains; Bigger Loss for Borders Borders’ first quarter loss was twice as bad as this time last year at $0.61 per share or $35.9 million, and it was 13 cents more than analysts were expecting as well. Sales held up better, at $876.8 million, though same-store sales at the superstores were down 1.9 percent, comprising $615 million. Walden comps were down 1 percent, at $108 million, and comps at the international stores fell 2.5 percent. The company closed 11 Waldens in the quarter. Gross margin fell to 22.4 percent, “due primarily to increased promotional discounts, de-leveraging […]