Penguin Still Suffers In a preliminary market update in advance of their end-of-February reporting of earnings, Pearson advised that the Penguin Group still “suffered as tough trading conditions persisted through the holiday season, particularly in U.S. mass market and backlist titles.” Pearson expects earnings per share for the year to come in at the low end of forecasts, with the strong pound continuing to take its toll on the company’s significant US sales. Separately, we noticed this curiously underplayed note in the most recent issue of The Bookseller: “Penguin will not fulfill orders from its Rugby depot from 30th january […]

Random House Set to Start Indian Division Continuing their program of international expansion, Random House will launch a division based in India shortly. (Bertelsmann CEO Gunther Thielen had indicated interest in setting up an “entity, wholly owned or otherwise, in India that would look after all our business interests,” last February.) International director Simon Littlewood says, “Our sales in this market have been steadily growing. We feel it’s time to publish books by Indian authors specifically for the Indian market.” He adds, “We will focus on non-fiction as we believe there is as burgeoning market in the area of self-help […]

Please Note The weekly deals will still go out on Sunday night, but there will be no Lunch on Monday. Borders Names Children’s Winners; Editor and Store Owner on MWA List For reasons we don’t entirely understand, Borders is trickling out the naming of their Original Voices award-winners. Yesterday they named Mo Willems’ KNUFFLE BUNNY as their top picture book, and Katherine Hannigan’s IDA B. took the honors for young adult novel. Borders chief marketing officer Michael Spinozzi comments in the announcement, “Mo Willems and Katherine Hannigan have created original and engaging works that appeal to young people and adults […]

Good Holiday for Borders, Too In step with recent bulletins from Barnes & Noble and Books-a-Million, Borders has also indicated that holiday sales were stronger than expected — particularly following a weak third quarter. Comparable store sales at the superstores were up 1.4 percent — less than their peers, but still enough to prompt CEO Greg Josefowicz to comment: “Overall, holiday 2004 was a bit better than expected in Borders superstores driven primarily by strength in book sales. This year, we saw sales improve later in the holiday season and those trends have continued, driven in part by gift card […]

Two Changes at the Top: Zacharius Succeeds Father, and Lever Moves to Sterling Marcus Leaver, CEO of the UK-based Chrysalis Books Group, is joining Sterling Publishing as of April 1 in the new position of evp and COO. Sterling CEO Charles Nurnberg says in statement, “Marcus will manage our growing financial and strategic demands, as well as our day-to-day business operations. I have gotten to know Marcus well over the last three years and know that his talent, energy and enthusiasm will benefit the entire company. His international experience will give us a distinct advantage, as we focus on developing […]

BAM Recovers for Good Holiday After a weak, storm-challenged third quarter, Books-A-Million bounced back with a comparable store sales gain of 2.9 percent in the final nine weeks of the calendar year. BAM registered $114.1 million in sales for the period. Sales for the first 11 months of their fiscal year stand at $441.1 million, with comp stores up 2.6 percent. “Because of our strong performance during the holiday season,” the company raised their earnings forecast by a penny per share. Press release AMS Sales Volume Will Drop as Borders Mass Market Business Ends Advanced Marketing Services announced that their […]