Personnel News Endeavor’s new book division based in New York has added Rebecca Oliver as a literary agent, starting later this month. She’ll oversee foreign and domestic subsidiary rights and work alongside Richard Abate. Oliver has been at Grand Central/Warner since 1999, most recently as associate director of subsidiary rights. At Ecco, Emily Takoudes is being promoted to senior editor. In the S&S publicity department, Kelly Welsh has been promoted to senior publicist. Bookseller Announcements from Borders, Amazon, and BN Borders is starting to line up vendors for their new bookselling site, once they depart from Amazon in 2008. Sterling […]

Pearson Peels Off Harcourt UK Pearson announced Friday that they have agreed to purchase Harcourt Assessment (the American educational testing company) and Harcourt Education International, based in Oxford, England, subject to approval from regulators, for $950 million. These two units generated $524 million in sales and $31 million in operating profit in 2006. Harcourt parent Reed says the sale of the US schools unit of Harcourt Education (and other components, including the trade division) “is proceeding satisfactorily and the disposal is expected to complete in the second half of 2007.” The remaining businesses up for sale comprised $1.113 billion in […]

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 Karen Weinreb’s THE SUMMER KITCHEN, pitched as a cross between CHOCOLAT and […]

June 2007 Book Sense Picks 1. THE BLOOD OF FLOWERS: A Novel, by Anita Amirrezvani A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS, by Khaled Hosseini THE RELIGION: A Novel, by Tim Willocks LIFE’S A BEACH, by Claire Cook FIVE SKIES: A Novel, by Ron Carlson LANDSMAN: A Novel, by Peter Charles Melman FALLING MAN: A Novel, by Don DeLillo DIVISADERO, by Michael Ondaatje ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MIRACLE: A Year of Food Life, by Barbara Kingsolver, Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver SOON I WILL BE INVINCIBLE: A Novel, by Austin Grossman LAND OF LINCOLN: Adventures in Abe’s America, by Andrew Ferguson THE GRAVEDIGGER’S DAUGHTER, […]

Strong Quarter for S&S; Waterstone’s Down Again Riding a considerable boost from The Secret, sales at Simon & Schuster jumped 27 percent for their first quarter, hitting $229 million, up $48 million from a year ago. Operating income rose even more dramatically to $21.4 million, up from $3.7 million last year, “driven by the revenue increase partially offset by higher expenses, primarily reflecting increased production costs and royalty expenses.” Meanwhile, the UK continues to succeed in progressively destroying their full-line bookstore chains in favor of supermarkets and other discounters. Waterstone’s parent HMV noted in a trading update that same-store sales […]

Better Quarter for Harlequin Both Torstar and subsidiary Harlequin have turned in a badly-needed quarter of improved performance, with both sales and profits rising. At Harlequin, sales of $124.5 million (CA) were up $6.2 million from a year ago, with most of the gain due to currency exchange, and with operating profit of $19.1 million in the first quarter of 2007, up $4.0 million from the same period last year. The biggest improvement came in North American retail sales, while direct mail sales declined and overseas results were flat, “with improved results in the Nordic group and Germany offset by […]