Holtzbrinck to Give Free Freight Holtzbrinck will move to free freight on shipping for books from all of its trade imprints and distributed trade clients, effective this November. President of the sales division Alison Lazarus says in an announcement, “Our customers have been asking for this, and our volume has reached a point where it is now possible to make this change. We believe it will help us remain competitive and allow us to have more consistent marketplace distribution for our titles.” The company notes that mass market titles have already been shipping free freight. Holtzbrinck college text book companies […]

The 2 Percent Solution Numbers should be pure, but how they are interpreted seems to vary widely, depending on both mood and context. In a holiday sales season that started with a brief flash of exuberance and then quickly fell flat, companies like Wal-Mart showing sales gains of up to three percent suddenly went from terrible to pretty good. All of this is just preamble for holiday results announced by Barnes & Noble. For the nine-week stretch leading up to January 1, comparable sales at their superstores were up 2 percent, to $1.04 billion overall. On the one hand, that’s […]

Sorry We had a number of computer problems yesterday, which led to our unusual “resend.” As a result, our Collins story ran in the latter edition only, so it’s repeated below in case you didn’t read it. Whitbread Winners The Whitbread category winners have been named, with the overall prize winner to be declared on January 25. Susan Clarke failed to win an award yet again for JONATHAN STRANGE & MR. NORRELL, though the UK press still treats it as a “surprise” every time. Bookies have made Orange winner Andrea Levy the favorite for the top prize. It’s the third […]

More Movement Martin P. Levin is returning home to Cowan, Liebovitz & Latman, to co-manage publishing mergers and acquisitions with Robert Halper and serve again as Counsel. Levin had been at Cowan ever since he retired from the Times Mirror Company in 1984, though he spent the last year working at The van Tulleken Company. While at van Tulleken, Levin is credited with being the “prime mover” in the recent sale of Walker & Co. to Bloomsbury. Levin says in a statement, While I enjoyed working in the international arena, I found that I could be most helpful to clients […]

Personnel News Publishers Weekly has named longtime publishing reporter Sara Nelson as editor-in-chief. According to the press release, former editor Nora Rawlinson “has decided to leave the organization to pursue other interests.” The magazine’s recently-appointed publisher William McGorry tells the NYT, “We felt we were looking for a new perspective.” He says they are trying to make the publication “a more compelling read.” The Times observes, “Publishers Weekly has faced many of the problems confronting general newsweekly magazines, including growing competition from daily electronic publications and Internet sites that cover the same ground.” Vintage Español has named Milena Alberti-Perez to […]

Boos to Run FBF One little mystery for the year has gotten cleared up nice and early, as the Frankfurt Book Fair announces the naming of Jürgen Boos, 43, as the show’s new director, starting April 1. Boos is currently head of marketing, sales and distribution scientific publisher Wiley-VCH in Germany. Current director Volker Neumann “is to remain in office parallel to Boos until December 31.” A List of Lists Best of 2004 lists have quickly yielded, per tradition, to previews of 2005. The best preface comes from the Boston Globe’s Dave Mehegan, who admits: “Forecasting the big books of […]