Harper to Co-Publish with Planeta Harper formally announced an agreement to co-publish a line of Spanish-language titles in the US under their Rayo imprint along with Spain’s Planeta. Publishing nine titles a year at the outset, the venture reaches the marketplace in late November with the release of two previously published novels by Shadow of the Wind author Carlos Ruiz Zafon, El Principe de la Niebla and El Palacio de la Medianoche. Eventually, Harper will publish “a select number” of Planeta titles in English-language territories and Planeta will have the option to publish a similarly select number of Harper titles […]

IPG Merges with Trafalgar and More Distribution News The distribution landscape continues to be the focus of much attention, as Independent Publishers Group’s parent company Chicago Review Press has acquired Trafalgar Square. Trafalgar is the leading distributor in the US for UK publishers, handling over 50 publishers, including Anova, BBC Books, Egmont, Hesperus, Harper UK, Hodder Headline, Little, Brown UK, Macmillan UK, Orion, Random House UK and Simon & Schuster UK. IPG says they will continue Trafalgar’s unusual model of buying clients’ books outright rather than taking them on consignment, and it will extend that same option to IPG’s existing […]

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 to put them all together. “nice deal” $1 – $49,000 “very nice deal” $50,000 – $99,000 “good deal” $100,000 – $250,000 “significant deal” $251,000 – $499,000 “major deal” $500,000 and up FICTION Debut Playwright (and Peabody and an Edgar winner) Theresa Rebeck’s first novel, three […]

State of Early Release The NYT bought a copy of Bob Woodward’s STATE OF DENIAL, set for release next week, in time for a front page story today. The Daily News bought a copy, too, even though the Times gets all the credit. They say Woodward found himself “speechless” by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s repeated refusals to take responsibility or admit to how bad the situation in Iraq has become. “How could he not see his role and responsibility? I could think of nothing more to say.” Woodward’s own paper scrambled to throw up a story earlier today that […]

More Bad News at Waterstone’s Same-store sales at Waterstone’s have continued their ugly decline (falling every reporting period since spring 2005) — which is even worse than it sounds, since the bar for comparison keeps getting lower. For the fiscal year to date, comparable sales fell 4.1 percent (though the company helpfully broke this down into an awful nine-week stretch at the beginning of the period, followed by a much-improved, just plain bad 12-week stretch thereafter). Gross margins declined as well, “reflecting a more promotional book market.” HMV report Personnel News The Poetry Foundation has named Jack Prelutsky to a […]

Back to the Future Not only did Sony present their new Reader device to the press last night, but they also made it available for sale immediately through their online store, selling for $350. Borders will be the first physical retailer to put units on sale, in October, and Sony says additional retail partners outside of bookselling will be announced soon. Borders will carry the units in about 300 stores. The Reader only works fully with the Windows XP platform for now however, though it can display unencrypted standard file formats such as PDF and text files, still good for […]