Julia Churchill is joining the Greenhouse Literary Agency. She was an agent with the Darley Anderson Agency, specializing in children’s fiction. At Random House Audio, Rebecca Waugh has been promoted to senior acquisitions editor for Listening Library. In the UK, Jamie Magazine–featuring Jamie Oliver–launches this week, exclusive to WH Smith stores for the first three issues. Unusually, the Guardian says the magazine is funded directed by Oliver, at a cost of 250,000 pounds. Augsburg Fortress, the publishing arm of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America based in Minneapolis, announced last month it would end its consumer book publishing line to […]
Parent Co. "Would Consider" Selling HMH Trade
With general bafflement continuing over Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s willingness to admit out loud that they have a freeze on buying new books, the NYT speaks to Jeremy Dickens, president of Education Media and Publishing Group, the private equity company that owns the trade publisher. “He denied that the company was for sale, but said, ‘If there’s a transaction that makes sense for all of our stakeholders, we’ll consider it.'” And “he said that the company had received inquiries from other trade publishers interested in acquiring Houghton.” On the freeze, Dickens said they wanted to be “extremely prudent about the way […]
Borders Comps Plunge; Pershing May Lend More
Borders has confirmed the obvious: “management is no longer contemplating a transaction” to sell the entire company.” But it is “in discussions with Pershing Square regarding an alternative financing transaction,” and still has the right to sell the Paperchase chain to Pershing Square for $65 million. Same-store sales for the third quarter suffered more at Borders than at the other big chains, falling 12.8 percent at their superstores, which had $548.4 million sales, with Waldenbooks comps falling less, by 7.7 percent, for sales of $91.5 million in total. Their web site sales were $11.9 million, “which is below management expectations […]
Woolworth's Halts Trading
In the UK, trading in Woolworths’ shares was suspended this morning at the company’s request, as they are on the verge of bankruptcy and deep in negotiations for a rescue. They said in a statement that they are in talks to sell the BBC Woolworths’ 40 percent share of their 2entertain joint venture, which produces and distributes BBC shows on DVD. There are reports of agreement for a sale of that unit for 100 million pounds, but the Times says “the sale of the DVD business hinges on talks over the rest of the business.” The chain is still in […]
One Kindle Stat: 10k NYT Readers
The Nieman Foundation comments on an internal NYT memo that tells staffer at the newspaper “we now have more than 10,000 paid subscribers to The Times on Kindle as well as more than 2,000 subscribers to the various NYTimes blogs available via the device.” Those totals were apparently boosted by an election-time “promotion” that provided free access to Kindle owners for a few days, with 8,500 sample copies downloaded. They say they are considering a similar promotion around inauguration time.Nieman blog
Briefly: Laura Bush Still Shopping; Coulter's GUILTY; Updike's Bad Sex; UK Sales Keep Falling; A New Standard for Digital Content
* First Lady Laura Bush has confirmed the previous confirmation that she is talking to publishers about a book deal. “I’ve been talking to some publishers, but nothing has happened yet — just a few visits.” * How will Ann Coulter fare in an Obama world? Her new book is GUILTY: Liberal “Victims” and their Assault on America, which “exposes and mocks, in graphic detail, the media’s love affair with all things Democrat and Obama” according to the hyping on the Drudge Report. * The UK sales decline continues, as year-on-year, unit sales were down 5.1 percent in the past […]