The Boston Globe has a long piece on Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s financial challenges, though there’s little that is new in the piece. Spokesman Josef Blumenfeld now says that “since Houghton’s reported decision last fall to suspend acquisition of new titles, it is signing new books again.” Former Houghton Mifflin ceo Nader Darehshori’s appraisal is that “the debt is so overwhelming, there’s just no way. They borrowed more than the value of the company. They will be lucky if the value is half of what they owe.”Globe
Layoffs at Hyperion Parent
On Thursday, Disney-ABC Television Group president Anne Sweeney told employees that the division would eliminate 200 jobs spread throughout the group’s units and would leave another 200 open positions unfilled. The division employs almost 7,000 people in all. Hyperion is part of the group–but publisher Ellen Archer tells us there have been no layoffs at the book publishing unit.LAT
People
Gary Heidt has left FinePrint Literary Management to form Signature Literary Agency in partnership with Ellen Pepus in Washington, DC. Pepus worked at Graybill and English before starting her own agency. At the Simon & Schuster imprint, assistant managing editor Michael Szczerban in now an assistant editor, reporting to editor-in-chief Priscilla Painton. Kate Ankofski has been promoted to assistant editor.
Amazon Beats the Street (and Passes BN)
Anaysts exected Amazon to stumble in the fourth quarter due to the economy and the etailer surprised investors with another strong report card. Sales increased 18 percent to $6.70 billion as operating income was flat at $272 million. Net income rose 9 percent to $225 million in the fourth quarter, or 52 cents per share. (Analysts were expecting only 39 cents a share, and sales of $6.44 billion.) For the coming quarter, the company expects sales to continue growing from between 9 percent and 19 percent. North American media sales (defined as sales from all sellers in categories such as […]
People
Isabel White has left Brie Burkeman to set up her own London-based agency representing high-quality, entertaining fiction and nonfiction. Sandy Lu of the Vanguard Literary Agency is joining Lori Perkins at the L. Perkins Agency as an associate agent. Fredric Nachbaur has been named Director of Fordham University Press effective February 17. Most recently he was marketing and sales director at NYU Press. A memorial service for critic, editor and novelist John Leonard will be held on Monday, March 2 at 6:00 PM at Landmark on the Park, 160 Central Park West. Toni Morrison, Victor Navasky, Gloria Steinem, Eugenia Zukerman, […]
Washington Post to Drop Book World
As the NBCC first reported on their blog, the Washington Post will drop its standalone book review section: “The last issue of Book World in print will be the February 15, 2009 issue. Thereafter, content will be split between the Outlook section and Style & Arts on Sundays. Daily book reviews in Style will continue. The promise is that there will be four additional broadsheet pages in Outlook for book coverage and one additional page in Style & Arts. That’s an equivalent of 12 tabloid pages. (Book World is 16 pages.) Jonathan Yardley’s reviews will appear in Outlook. Michael Dirda’s […]