Superstores Improve at BN Same-store sales rose 2.2 percent for the first quarter at Barnes & Noble, hitting $1.097 billion overall. Most of that ($959 billion) comes from the BN superstores, as BN.com revenue fell slightly compared to a year ago ($91.4 million) and B. Dalton continues its fade($31.5 million). Net earnings from continuing operations fell at the high range of the company’s predictions and exceeded analysts expectations at $9.9 million, though consolidated earnings are lower without a contribution from the now spun-off GameStop. BN expects mid-single-digit comparable store gains next quarter, relying on the new Harry Potter, and expects […]
Lunch for Friday, May 13
The Personnel Section: Doubleday Reorganizes Rights; ABA Adds to Board; and Other News Citing such factors as dwindling domestic sub-rights opportunities and a more challenging environment for foreign rights (“both in acquiring rights from retentive agents and in selling them more strategically”), Doubleday Broadway deputy publisher Michael Palgon announced internally a restructuring of the rights department. Louise Quayle has been promoted to the new position of director, domestic rights, and Rebecca Gardner has been hired for the post of director, foreign rights, starting later this month. Gardner was at BBC North America, and before that worked for Maria Campbell Associates. […]
Lunch for Thursday, May 12
Wiley Purchases Sybex Wiley is buying computer book and software publisher Sybex, based in Alameda, CA. With revenues of over $10 million in 2004, Sybex publishes about 100 titles a year. The company’s backlist of about 450 titles focuses on graphics, digital photography, operating systems, programming, and gaming. Company release Logrolling at the Top: When Journalistic Institutions Take Care of Their Own NPR’s Scott Simon got to promote his first novel PRETTY BIRDS on the network’s Morning Edition and Fresh Air, and a number of listeners asked the NPR ombudsman if this wasn’t unseemly. VP of news Bruce Drake gives […]
Lunch for Wednesday, May 11
Some PEN Winners Among the recipients of the just-announced PEN Literary Awards: The PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction The End of Faith by Sam Harris The PEN/Martha Albrand Award for the Art of the Memoir Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn The PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize Fatelessness by Imre Kertész, translated by Tim Wilkinson The PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship Amanda Jenkins The PEN Jerard Fund Award [for “a work in progress of general nonfiction distinguished by high literary quality by a woman at the midpoint in her career”] Stealing Buddha’s Dinner by Bich Minh Nguyen […]
Lunch for Tuesday, May 10
Putnam Adds Conaway and Kahan, Plus More Personnel News New Putnam president Ivan Held has moved quickly to bolster the imprint’s editorial staff, hiring Dan Conaway away from Harper as executive editor, and adding Rachel Kahan, who was at Crown since 1997, as a senior editor. Both will start at Putnam on June 1. Separately, Kris Puopolo has been given the new position of senior editor for Doubleday Broadway (she was at just Broadway), reporting to Bill Thomas and taking on additional responsibility for acquiring serious nonfiction for the Doubleday list. Puopolo already edits Pulitzer winner Anne Applebaum, along with […]
Lunch for Monday, May 9
Huffington Posts Book News The new celeblog the Huffington Post launches today with an uncredited lead story highlighting Gerald Posner’s forthcoming SECRETS OF THE KINGDOM: The Inside Story of the Saudi-US Connection, scheduled for publication next week. They say the book cites NSA reports that Saudi Arabia has “a nationwide, self-destruction explosive system composed of conventional explosives and dirty bombs” installed throughout their oil industry infrastructure, dubbed “petroleum scorched earth.” The idea is to protect the House of Saud from attack, from outside the country but also from within, ensuring that any such incursion would “leave the country a contaminated […]