The lack of a comparable book sales-wise to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – even with the success of Stephenie Meyer’s Breaking Dawn, the Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski and Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture – took an expected toll on Barnes & Noble’s second quarter earnings. Total sales for Barnes & Noble declined 2% to $1.22 billion. Store sales were off 1.6%, to $1.1 billion, while sales through Barnes & Noble.com increased 3.6% to $99.8 million. Comparable store sales fell 4.7% at the physical stores in the period. Excluding prior year sales of the Harry Potter […]
US Situation Reflects Quarto's Second Half Losses
For the six months ended June 30, International coedition and publishing group Quarto made a pretax loss of 3.1 million pounds against a 400,000 pound profit last time as revenues rose to 43.8 million pounds from 36.6 million pounds. Revenue increased by 20% to £43.8m on an adjusted basis, with underlying sales growth of 4%. Adjusted operating profit was £2.3m, growth of 33%, or 4% on an underlying basis. The group’s actual operating loss was £1.3m, compared with an operating profit in the same period last year of £1.6m. The loss came after restructuring costs of £2.7m associated with the […]
Push On to Publish Olympic Medallists
Britain’s surprising medal haul at the Beijing Olympics has prompted a flurry of interest in potential book projects, with agents sounding out publishers for deals for the likes of double-gold swimming champion Rebecca Adlington, medal-winning cyclist Victoria Pendleton and teenage diver Tom Daley. Giles Elliott, sports editor at Transworld, said that since Ben Ainslie’s gold medal win in sailing last Sunday, there have been agents trying to tout tie-in sports titles. “They have been going around trying to see what kind of interest there is,” he said. Tom Whiting, editorial director at Harper non-fiction, added: “There are a lot of […]
Bertelsmann Among Reed Bidders?
German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung reports that Gruner + Jahr, in which Bertelsmann owns a controlling stake, is among the bidders for Reed Business Information.Wire item
What Publishing Can Learn from Social Media
At Business Week, Sarah Lacy writes about a topic “near and dear” to her: how publishing can adapt and “stay everywhere” in the wake of changing social media and Web 2.0 applications: “A way to do that is to ensure that publishing learns how to exploit the full benefits of the social media tools now taking hold of the Web. Newspapers dragged their heels and look what’s happening to them. As great as the Kindle is, publishing has a long way to go.” Her five lessons for the industry include looking to Yelp, Digg and Twitter for ways to “make […]
Serbian Publisher Withdraws "Medina"
Serbian publisher BeoBook says that they have withdrawn their printing of Sherry Jones’ novel THE JEWEL OF MEDINA “because of protests from local Islamic leaders who said it insulted Muhammad and his family,” the AP reports. (By other accounts, the protests were led by one a Belgrade mufti–and another mufti spoke out against the intimidation.) The company expressed “apology and regret” to Muslims as part of a statement posted on their web site. They are said to have printed approximately 1,000 copies of the book a few weeks ago. The Washington Post files a long piece on the larger controversy […]