News Corp reported financial results for the first quarter of fiscal year 2025, ended September 30, with publishing sales up 4 percent to $546 million, rising by $21 million. EBITDA was up 25 percent to $81 million, gaining $16 million, driven by backlist sales and strong digital sales. Those digital sales were up 15 percent over the prior year, especially boosted by digital audio, which grew 26 percent, attributed to their partnership with Spotify. Ebooks sales rose 7 percent “after a period of relative sluggishness,” ceo Robert Thomson said on a call with investors on Thursday. Together, ebooks and digital […]
ABA Requests Tertulia Remove Bookstore Content
Book recommendation site Tertulia has used logos and content from bookstores without permission, according to Bookselling This Week. Tertulia hosts pages of “Book Recommendations & Book Mentions” from several stores, which include a list of books that the store has mentioned on Twitter, along with the text of the post. The pages also include stores’ logos and a link to their Twitter pages. Pages exist for prominent indies including Anderson’s Bookshop and BookPeople. As of today, one for Powell’s has been removed. Paul Bogaards, a spokesperson for Tertulia, said that bookstore content was included unintentionally. “They are legacy book mentions from […]
HBG Employees Write Letter Protesting New Basic Liberty Imprint
Employees of Hachette Book Group wrote a letter to management protesting the publisher’s new conservative imprint Basic Liberty and the hiring of former Heritage Foundation fellow Thomas Spence. (The letter was posted on the Instagram account xoxopublishinggg.) The employees write: “As employees of HBG, we stand together in firm disapprobation of The Heritage Foundation, Project 2025, and any conservative movement of thought that strips away sacred rights and the humanity of people. We disavow David Shelley’s unsympathetic and insensitive remarks, and maintain that the dignity, rights, and freedoms of all people should be upheld by everyone, especially those in positions […]
People 11/8
People 11/7
Mike Shatzkin, RIP
The beautiful, brilliant, boisterous, kind, generous, optimistic, unconventional and wholly original Mike Shatkzin, 77, died on the morning of November 7 at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, following the recent onset of a rare cancer. In his final days, Mike was lifted by an outpouring of love and appreciation, as his ICU room overflowed with visitors from near and far and his email and texts flooded with messages. Even as his body struggled, Mike’s resting face in his hospital bed was often a smile. Mike was indelible. If you were fortunate enough to spend time with him, his voice […]