Amazon Reports In There are all manner of ways of presenting and spinning Amazon’s fourth quarter results, but we’ll start by focusing on the things that might be of the most interest to the book publishing world. Sales for the quarter reached $2.54 billion, up 31 percent overall (including an $85 million “benefit” from exchange rates). North American media sales, the segment that includes books, grew 18 percent, to $885 million for the quarter, and $2.589 billion for the full year (up 14 percent) — making it Amazon’s slowest-growing segment. The company overall hit sales of $6.92 billion for the […]
Lunch for Wednesday, February 2
Quarterly News Second quarter fiscal results popped at HarperCollins, with profits up 8.8 percent to $62 million (after a nearly flat first quarter) and sales up even more, by 10.6 percent, to $377 million. And those results are in comparison to a strong second quarter a year ago as well. A News Corp. statement notes in particular movie-driven life for the Lemony Snicket series and continuing Purpose-Driven Life sales. Though the latter had slowed down a little over the summer, it sold a robust 1.5 million units or so during the reported quarter, bringing the North American total to 20.5 […]
Lunch for Tuesday, February 1
Jovanovich Will Leave Pearson Head of Pearson’s education unit Peter Jovanovich, 55, is resigning, in the wake of continuing medical complications following a double-lung transplant almost a year ago. Divisional heads will now report directly to Pearson CEO Marjorie Scardino, as was the case during Jovanovich’s lengthy leave-of-absence. As Pearson’s largest and most important division, the educational unit yields about 60 percent of the company’s sales (and an even larger share of its profits); a predicted resurgence in US educational markets has been billed as a key to Pearson’s 2005 performance. Reuters report Borders’ Nonfiction Pick Borders has been oddly […]
Lunch for Monday, January 31
New and Proposed: On Brando, Cheney’s Trail, and Davis Marlon Brando’s former Tahitian wife (and mother of his children Cheyenne and Teihotu) Tarita Teriipaia’s memoir MARLON, MY LOVE, MY SUFFERING, has just been published in France by XO Editions, in a first printing of 50,000 copies. She tells Paris Match, “We lived terrible tragedies and we all suffered a lot. Marlon never spoke about it. I wanted our children, all our grand-children to know our history.” The publisher is said to be “in talks” about translation rights. Reuters Dick Cheney’s daughter Mary is shopping a book proposal about her days […]
Lunch for Friday, January 28
S&S In DisneyWar Skirmish Based on advance looks at portions of James Stewart’s embargoed March 7 release DISNEYWAR, Disney representatives are said to have “contacted Stewart to dispute certain aspects of the book” and at least threatened S&S with the possibility of legal action — while Simon & Schuster has warned Disney not to mess with its launch. S&S publisher David Rosenthal tells the LA Times, “We have informed Disney that they have an unauthorized copy of [James Stewart’s DISNEYWAR, embargoed until its March 7 release] and put them on notice not to disseminate it,” adding that, “It’s ours, and […]
Lunch for Thursday, January 27
Prize News Edwidge Danticat won the first $20,000 Story Prize for THE DEW BREAKER. The Quill Awards get covered in multiple places but, sadly, the place we still think of as “the paper of record” yet again blows a simple publishing story by misinterpreting a press release. The NYT incorrectly attributes the announcement — and by implication the whole awards program — to “a new philanthropy called the Quills Literacy Foundation.” Yes, the press release (which we linked to yesterday) is a little fuzzy on who really owns this program and what its true purposes are. But as we reported, […]