Quarterly Scorecards: Penguin Up a Little (Pearson Ed Up a Lot), S&S Down Pearson is delivering the long-promised strong 2005 increases in sales at the Pearson Education unit. For the first nine months of the year, sales have risen 10 percent in the educational divisional and profits are up 20 percent. At Penguin, sales are up 2 percent so far in the fiscal year though, “with the 2005 publishing schedule weighted more towards the first half, the rate of growth has, as expected, slowed through the year.” (Additionally, fiscal 2004 was a weak year for the trade publisher, with sales […]

Less Would Have Been More Profitable With every new book in the Harry Potter series, the press frenzy of anticipation has gotten stronger and stronger, and the pre-order fuelled opening day sale has risen — even as the total sales decline from book to book. Which poses extra challenges to Scholastic: how do you properly calculate and delivery enough books to meet initial demand without getting stuck with too much inventory shortly thereafter? A report in the Independent suggests the publisher should have foregone reprints of 2.7 million copies on THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE as Scholastic chairman Dick Robinson “admits bookshops […]

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Stehlik to Take Over at Avon Liate Stehlik has been hired to serve as svp and publisher of Avon, reporting to HarperMorrow group publisher Michael Morrison, starting at the end of November. Stehlik fills a slot that has been vacant. Avon executive editor Carrie Feron, who had been reporting to Morrison, will now report to Stehlik. She has been associate publisher at Pocket Books since 2001. From the UK Da Vinci Hearing A trial date of February 27 has been set in London for the lawsuit brought by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh against Dan Brown and Random House over […]

Bratton’s Books Details are scant, but Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton apparently has two more books in the works, one on management and another on counterterrorism, according to the LA Times. The paper says the news took some city officials by surprise, and “Bratton isn’t talking about details of the books.” LAT For HCI Employees The Deerfield, FL-based publisher Health Communications is without power or telephones and has closed temporarily in the wake of Hurricane Wilma. Editorial director Bret Witter is trying to get in contact with other publishing division employees from an outpost in Atlanta. Witter can […]

Searchable Books: Microsoft is Next This much is clear: More books are going to be searchable in more places on the Internet. Yesterday Microsoft announced a plan to establish MSN Book Search. Set to begin rolling out in beta next year, they aim to gather “content from books, academic materials, periodicals and other print resources.” The initial focus is clearly on materials in the public domain, and to that end Microsoft has joined the Open Content Alliance (OCA) that was announced a few weeks ago, and will pay $5 million to fund the scanning of 150,000 books under the supervision […]