Monday, May 8 Our Usual Reminder If for some reason this has reached you even though you are not a paying member of PublishersMarketplace, please visit the link below to join us all the time for complete deal reports and more. Click to register http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/register.shtml Deal Reports Just e-mail to deals@PublishersMarketplace if you aren’t using the online form linked below. Report a deal using the online form The Key As usual, the handy key to our Lunch deal categories. While all reports are always welcome, those that include a category will generally receive a higher listing when it comes time […]

Book Fair War Is On In London The Frankfurt Book Fair has seized upon the vulnerability of the London Book Fair following their botched relocation to outer London by booking the Earl’s Court exhibition hall in central London for a new convention scheduled for Monday April 16 through Wednesday April 18, 2007. Among initial supporters, the UK’s biggest trade group Hachette Livre has agreed to exhibit at the new show and will bypass the London Book Fair. CEO Tim Hely Hutchinson says: “We are delighted that a central London venue has been found for London to continue hosting an attractive […]

CEO Leaves AMS Bruce Myers is leaving his post as president and CEO at Advanced Marketing Services “immediately,” and is resigning his board post as well. An accounting advisor to the company in the wake of its accounting scandal in 2004, Myers joined AMS that April as chief operating and officer and moved up to CEO later that year. The company says in an announcement they expect to announce a replacement “shortly… who is well-known and highly regarded in the company’s industry. In the meantime, evp and co-founder Loren C. Paulsen is serving as interim president and CEO. Trade Soft […]

Another Tough Quarter at Harlequin Figuring out Harlequin-parent Torstar’s first quarter results requires more complicated parsing of currency hedging, exchange rates, and accounting regulation changes than usual — which generally indicates the company is straining for ways to explain that business wasn’t as bad as it looks. Actual profit from book publishing was down $9.5 million (CA) from last year — though last year they made money from smart dollar hedging rather than smart publishing. “Underlying” book profits were flat. Actual book sales declined to $118 million, from $127 million a year ago. Nonetheless, CEO Robert Prichard declares, “At Harlequin, […]

Tim, Out Don’t you hate it when you try to force a company to give up on a planned acquisition they worked hard on for eight months and sell one of their units to you instead, and they try to impose strict conditions on you? And then your primary backer “coincidentally” happens to pull their promised financing? That’s the world of Tim Waterstone, who continues his long losing streak of failed efforts to buy back the bookstore chain he founded. (Which is probably just as well — doesn’t Tim know that when you use private equity money for a purchase, […]

Finally, It’s Chinski Long expected to succeed Jonathan Glusman, Eric Chinski has now officially been named as the new editor-in-chief at Farrar, Straus. He has been an executive editor there since 2003. Publisher Jonathan Galassi says in the announcement: “Eric is one of the most imaginative and talented editors I’ve known in my time in publishing. He is also a natural leader who is temperamentally empathetic – a quality much appreciated by both his authors and his colleagues. All of us at FSG look forward to working closely with him for many years to come.” On Friday, Publishing Trends reported […]