Wall Street seems to think that Borders can survive following a second quarter report showing weak sales but a reduced operating loss and slimmer debt-load, with shares up twenty-five percent over yesterday’s close in early trading. (That said, the stock price is still below the strike price of the options granted to Pershing Square earlier this year when they provided the company with an emergency loan.) Sales from continuing operations in the fiscal second quarter actually fell more than expected, reaching just $749 million, but the company’s loss from continuing operations of $11.3 million (19 cents per share) was much […]
Roche Joins Harper UK
Former ceo of Borders UK David Roche will work for Harper UK on “a short term consultancy basis to provide a unique insight into our sales operation from the perspective of a real retail expert.” He reports directly to ceo Victoria Barnsley. The company is still looking for a full-time group sales and marketing director.Bookseller In other personnel news, Shanta Small will move over to become director of publicity at Penguin Children’s on October 1. Most recently she has been the head of marketing and publicity at Penguin’s Tarcher Books, after five years in the publicity department at Random House […]
Either Way, Tintin Gets a Top Director
Brussels’ Herge Studios caused a bit of confusion yesterday in announcing that Peter Jackson would direct the first film in a planned Tintin trilogy for Dreamworks. A representative for Steven Spielberg says that he still intends to direct the film, and a representative for Jackson agrees. Jackson will be a producer on the first film film and intends to direct the second one; first he has to complete Lovely Bones (in post-production) and write scripts for the two Hobbit movies. The first Tintin is based on two books, The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham’s Treasure, with a screenplay […]
Japan's Shrinking Publishing Business
The Japan Times looks at the long-term trend of a shrinking publishing business in Japan. (Note carefully that they include books, magazines and manga together in a single category.) With sales of approximately $18.365 billion annually (2.08 trillion yen) sales are falling about three percent a year, and are down 21 percent since 1996. Readership is dropping, and so are the number of sales outlets: “Hundreds of small and midsize bookstores have closed in recent years. The number of shops belonging to the Japan Booksellers Federation, a national industry group of bookstores selling newly published books, came to 5,869 in […]
Virgin Books Closes NY Comics Office
Virgin Books’ Comics unit–a partnership with India-based comics publisher Gotham Entertainment–will close its New York office and reorganize. Eight people have been laid off, citing the “the current macro-economic downturn,” but the companies hope to set up a new office in Los Angeles. Reuters notes: “The company launched in 2006 with Virgin Group chief Richard Branson, author Deepak Chopra and filmmaker Shekhar Kapur among its founders. It began by publishing comics inspired by Indian and Hindu mythology and then moved into a line known as Director’s Cut, which attempted to lure filmmakers into the comics world in hopes of subsequently […]
Designers Craft Digital Print Demo Book
Are you curious about the printing capabilities of digital printing? Prof. Frank Philippin at Hochschule Darmstadt in Germany and British designer James Goggin worked with graphic design students in a two-day workshop to create DEAR LULU, a test book that “acts as a calibration document for testing color, pattern, format, texture and typography. Exercises in color profile (Adobe RGB/sRGB/CMYK/Greyscale), halftoning, point size, line, geometry, skin tone, colour texture, cropping and print finishing provide useful data for other designers and self-publishers to judge the possibilities and quality of online print-on-demand — specifically Lulu.com, with this edition.” The book sells, via Lulu […]