PW: News Shorts

Frankfurt, Whitaker Team for Rights Site | AMS Posts Solid Gains in Sales | Mira Sets Summer Launch For New Hardcover Line | Intervisual Signs First Client | Philipson Wins Curtis Benjamin Award | Books24x7 Taps Parkinson as New CEO | Sales, Earnings Rise at BAM | Strong Year for Vivendi | New Name, Staff at Entrepreneur Press | Sales Rise at Golden Books

Frankfurt, Whitaker Team for Rights Site
With the number of online rights sites growing, it was only a matter of time before the world's largest book fair weighed in with its own initiative. In an announcement issued last week, the Frankfurt Book Fair said it was partnering with BPI/Whitaker to launch an Internet-based rights marketplace for the international publishing and media community.

The site, which is expected to be ready prior to the next Frankfurt Fair, set to begin October 18, is being designed to serve publishers, agents, rights buyers and sellers across all media, including music, video, children's entertainment and educational media as well as books. The site's objective will be to take advantage of the convergence of the publishing industry with other owners of intellectual property to create an integrated marketplace for rights transactions across all key media sectors. Frankfurt's new managing director, Lorenzo A. Rudolf, observed, "We see the international rights trade moving dynamically onto the Internet, with business being conducted globally and seamlessly throughout the year." He added that the new site will be "an intellectual- rights exchange that will reach far beyond the limits of the present-day global book business."
--Jim Milliot

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AMS Posts Solid Gains in Sales
Earnings at Advanced Marketing Services jumped 25.3% to $628 million for the year ended March 31, 2000. Net income increased 36.8% to $17.1 million. AMS reported that the improved financial performance was due to the addition of new customers, higher international sales, increased sell-through of proprietary product and publisher incentive programs.

AMS president Michael Nicita said he was particularly pleased in fiscal 2000 with the distributor's international expansion, which was aided by the purchase of the Australian Bookwise International company and the 25% investment stake in Canada's Raincoast Books. Company chairman Charles Tillinghast said that AMS will look to strengthen its presence in a number of "high-growth book retail markets and expand our niche publishing activities" in fiscal 2001.
--Jim Milliot

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Mira Sets Summer Launch For New Hardcover Line
Mira Books, Harlequin's mainstream commercial fiction imprint, will launch a hardcover program beginning in August. Dianne Moggy, editorial director of Mira, said that while the company has done an occasional hardcover in the past, under the new line Mira will release one hardcover per month for the first year and may expand the program in its second year. A limited number of trade paperbacks will also be released in the first list.

The lead title in the program is A Perfect Evil by Alex Kava, for which Mira has just set a 75,000-copy first printing. A first printing has not yet been set for The Innocents Club by Taylor Smith, which will be published in September, but Mira has scheduled a 100,000-copy printing for Debbie Macomber's Return to Promise. Moggy noted that the expansion of the hardcover line is designed to build paperback authors into hardcover bestsellers as well as to attract new authors.

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Intervisual Signs First Client
Intervisual Books Inc. has signed its first distribution client as part of its plan to expand its distribution business. IBI will begin distributing for Brilliant Beginnings, a developer of infant and preschool reference materials for parents, later this year. "We're going to aggressively look for companies that fit with our account base," IBI chief financial officer Dan Reavis told PW.

The creation of a distribution business is one of the synergies IBI has found in its May 1999 acquisition of Fast Forward Marketing, a distributor of video and audio products. Reavis noted that Fast Forward already had a distribution infrastructure in place to which IBI has since added. At the end of 1999, IBI moved its warehouse and fulfillment functions from Andrews McMeel Publishing to Ware-Pak, and in early 2000 the company added nine independent rep groups to complement its own in-house sales force of 12. In addition, Fast Forward founder Steve Ades has been given the responsibility of finding new distribution clients.

Sales in IBI's first quarter rose 145% to $3.7 million, due largely to the Fast Forward acquisition. Net loss in the quarter was $417,719, compared to $383,377 in last year's first period.
--Jim Milliot

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Philipson Wins Curtis Benjamin Award
Morris Philipson, director of the University of Chicago Press, will receive this year's Curtis Benjamin Award for Creative Publishing, which will be presented Friday, June 2, at BookExpo America in Chicago.

Philipson began his publishing career in 1959 as an editor at Vintage Books; from 1961 to 1966 he worked as an editor at Random House, Pantheon and Basic Books. In 1966 he became executive editor at the University of Chicago Press, and was appointed director in 1967.

Philipson will be retiring this year after 33 years at the Press. His innovations helped the company grow from a small operation to a major publisher with 261 books, 50 journals and $40 million in sales in 1999.

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Books24x7 Taps Parkinson as New CEO
Books24x7.com, the Web-based reference resource for information technology professionals, has named David F. Parkinson president and CEO. Parkinson was formerly CFO, partner and executive committee member of Boston Consulting Group, and he brings more than 20 years of experience in technology licensing and business development. Parkinson, will remain on Books24x7's board of directors. Parkinson succeeds Christopher Pooley.

"Dave's arrival at the helm of Books24x7 sends a major statement to the market," said Lawrence Finch, senior partner with the venture capital firm of Sigma Partners and a Books24x7 board member. "His management experience and track record of success make him ideal to lead the company through an accelerated rate of growth."

Apparently, accelerated growth is what's in store for Books24x7. The May 1 issue of PW carried a full-page "Positions Open" ad for Books24x7.com, seeking applicants for 14 positions, from receptionist to book production technician to software engineer, and director of publisher relations. In addition, earlier in the year, Books24x7 broadened its offerings beyond the hardcore IT market.
--Paul Hilts

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Sales, Earnings Rise at BAM
Revenues at Books-A-Million rose 9.4% to $93.1 million for the first quarter ended April 29, 2000. Net income in the period increased to $471,000 from $310,000 in the first quarter of fiscal 2000. Comparable-store sales were ahead 6.2% in the period. BAM chairman Clyde Anderson attributed the improvement to strong sales of The Brethren, the Harry Potter series and Oprah's book club picks. Sales of Pokémon merchandise and collectibles also did well.

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Strong Year for Vivendi
Total sales for Vivendi, parent company of French book and media giant Havas, soared 31% to 41.6 billion euros in 1999--roughly $37.3 billion at a current rate of exchange (and even more at the conversion that prevailed on December 31--$43.2 billion). Some 10% of the rise was due to internal growth.

Havas, which has taken over Groupe de la Cité's trade, reference and school imprints and hereby market leadership in France, was folded into Vivendi two years ago. It is now part of Vivendi's publishing and multimedia sector, which with audiovisual business, accounts for 10.7% of total revenues; Havas alone operates in 40 countries and employs 20,000. In France, in addition to its longstanding 50/50 book-club partnership with Bertelsmann, Havas is engaged in a major e-commerce venture with the German media giant (Bertelsmann CEO Thomas Middelhoff is on the Vivendi board). Sister companies in communications include VivendiNet, offering portals in major world languages, and a 50/50 alliance with Vodaphone AirTouch, world leader in mobile phones, for development of a multi-access Internet portal. A venture capital fund, Viventures, focuses on American start-ups, while the Battle.net and Won.net sites target U.S. gamesters.

Vivendi's president and CEO, Jean-Mariue Messier, said that Vivendi will soon be present in U.S. stock markets--either via the New York Stock Exchange or NASDAQ. That is to be the first step leading to divestitures in Vivendi's traditional service activities, allowing an expanded commitment to media and telecommunications.
--Herbert R. Lottman

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New Name, Staff at Entrepreneur Press
The book division of Entrepreneur Media, formerly known as Entrepreneur Books, has been renamed Entrepreneur Press and has announced several new appointments, in addition to its plans to increase the number and kind of titles it publishes.

Entrepreneur Press was launched in 1998 to produce books offering practical how-to information and motivational titles aimed at the small business person. Susan Lewis, formerly v-p of trade sales for Random House, joined the firm in late 1999 as v-p, business products, with responsibility for the book division. Kim White, formerly director of publicity services at National Book Network, joined the firm in February as director of marketing. The company has also added additional staff in editorial, acquisitions and design.

The press published five titles in 1999; it will publish eight in 2000 and 15 in 2001, including its first hardcover release. Entrepreneur Media also publishes magazines and loose-leaf business start-up guides; directs a small-business Web site called Smallbizbooks.com; produces software products; and organizes expos and seminars on starting small businesses.

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Sales Rise at Golden Books
Revenues at Golden Books increased 4% to $36.3 million in the first quarter ended March 25, 2000. The net loss fell to $4.3 million from $11.3 million in last year's first quarter; the company reported earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $2.1 million in the period, compared to an EBITDA loss of $2.7 million in the first quarter of 1999.

Golden also announced that it has signed a multi-year agreement with Warner Bros. Consumer Products to publish books based on Warner's The Powerpuff Girls and Scooby-Doo Cartoon Network programs. The agreement calls for Golden to publish color and activity books as well as novelty products based on the cartoon characters. Nine books will be released this spring under the Powerpuff line with at least five more titles set for fall publication. The Scooby-Doo line will roll out in the fall with a minimum of eight books.