Latest Earnings: Houghton Houghton Mifflin’s trade and reference division reported net sales of $41.1 million for their third quarter, up 8.2 percent from last year. “The increase was due primarily to the higher sales of adult, children’s and cookbook titles, offset by the decline in sales of Tolkien titles.” Educational sales at the company were up slightly, though operating income declined for the quarter. Following Pearson’s news from yesterday, some analysts are grumpy that the company did not provide a specific range of forecast earnings. Numis Securities told The Scotsman they are reducing their own forecast by $9.2 million to […]

The Other Shoe: Harper to Create True Collins Division A number of our questions about what yesterday’s newly announced HarperMorrow division meant for the rest of the US Harper imprints got answered quickly with today’s announcement: The company will launch a true Collins division for the first time in the U.S. Former PW publisher (and before that president of Grolier) Joe Tessitore has been named president of the new division, reporting to Brian Murray. Collins will now comprise what was the HarperInformation group, including HarperResource, HarperBusiness, and HarperSanFrancisco. It also absorbs Harper Design, and will coordinate more closely with the […]

Today It’s HarperMorrow HarperCollins has merged a number of the Harper imprints with the Morrow/Avon lines in a new division to be called HarperMorrow — all of which will be under the direction of newly named president and group publisher Michael Morrison. Imprints under his direction comprise: HarperCollins, William Morrow, HarperEntertainment, Morrow Cookbooks, HarperPerennial, Avon, Eos, Dark Alley, Amistad, HarperAudio, HarperLarge Print and PerfectBound. Morrison reports to Brian Murray, Group President of HarperCollins Publishers. One impetus for the move mentioned is to work towards creating clear and separate brand identities for both Harper and Morrow. Harper publisher Susan Weinberg, Amistad […]

Two Counts of Lawsuit Against Patterson Move Forward A Southern District court judge allowed allegations of breach of contract and copyright infringement to proceed against novelist James Patterson, while dismissing seven other charges, including misappropriation and unjust enrichment, according to a short piece in NY Lawyer. Patterson is being sued by Christina Sharp, which whom he was involved romantically for a period between June 1996 and April 1997. Sharp alleges that CAT AND MOUSE includes some of her work, and asserts that SUZANNE’S DIARY FOR NICHOLAS was based on her idea. Judge Gerard E. Lynch wrote: “In tandem with their […]

Earnings Reports: Harper and Dover Earnings were nearly flat at HarperCollins for their fiscal first quarter, rising $1 million from a year ago to $60 million, as sales grew almost 5 percent, to $364 million. At Courier’s Dover Publishing, sales for the full fiscal year were nearly flat, rising $.5 million to $36.9 million, but profits rose 8 percent, to $6.3 million. One growth sector for the company continues to be direct-to-consumer sales, which rose 7 percent in the fourth quarter and 5 percent for the full year. International sales, though flat in the fourth quarter, also rose sharply for […]