News Shorts

Staff -- Publishers Weekly, 1/1/2001

News

News Shorts
Staff -- 1/1/01

Hungry Minds to Miss 1st-Qtr. Targets
Hungry Minds, whose executives had earlier warned that fiscal 2001 would be a "challenging year" (News, Nov. 20, 2000), announced late last month that the publishing company would not hit its projected sales and earnings targets for the first quarter ended December 31, 2000. Revenues are expected to fall 15% below Hungry Minds' original forecast and 16% below fiscal 2000 first quarter sales of $57.8 million, and instead of posting a small profit, the company is projecting a loss for the quarter.

The company, which had been previously called IDG Books, blamed the pending shortfall largely on softer-than-expected sales of computer books that it said reflected slower sales of personal computers. Revenues from Hungry Minds' consumer group were basically on plan, the company reported. In a look at sales by marketing channels, sales through e-retailers will account for 25% of the revenue decline, while sales to mass market retail accounts is expected to be off by $1 million. Revenue through wholesalers is projected to be down $1.5 million from its original target, and anticipated sales to corporations and government agencies will be $1 million below plan.

Hungry Minds is also having a difficult time in its efforts to broaden its business beyond traditional book publishing, as advertising, licensing and syndication revenues are running 50% behind expectations. The company noted that while these activities are only a small part of its sales, the shortfall may make it difficult for Hungry Minds to meet its objective of generating revenues of $9.4 million from Internet projects.

--Jim Milliot

New Investor For iUniverse
In its quarterly filing with the SEC, Barnes & Noble reported a $326,000 gain on the partial sale of its stake in iUniverse. The sale reduced B&N's stake in the online vanity press from 49% to 29%. In 1999, B&N paid $20 million for a 41% interest in the company and paid $8 million earlier this year for another 8% share. B&N sold part of its iUniverse holdings to a new, unidentified investor brought in by iUniverse founder Richard Tam. Tam was unavailable to comment on the new investment last week.

Retailing
October Bookstore Sales Up 6%
After two straight months of better than 20% sales gains, retail bookstore sales increased at a more modest 6.6% rate in October, to $1.07 billion, according to preliminary estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. Sales for the entire retail segment were up 6.1%. For the first 10 months of 2000, bookstore sales rose 11%, to $12.11 billion, over the same period in 1999, while total retail sales were ahead 9% for the period.

Friedman Has New 3-Year Deal
Jane Friedman, president and CEO of HarperCollins, has signed a new three-year contract with News Corp. that will keep her heading the publishing house through November 2003. The new agreement follows a record year at HC in which revenues topped $1 billion and operating income rose 85% to $89 million. In addition to HC's internal growth, Friedman has overseen the purchase and integration of Ecco Press, Morrow/Avon, Fourth Estate and Amistad Press. Lachlan Murdoch, deputy chief operating officer at News Corp., praised Friedman for making HC "one of the most powerful and dynamic publishing houses in the world," and added, "We look forward to Harper's continued growth under her stewardship in the years to come."

Michel Joins Time Warner Trade
Bob Michel, who has spent more than 20 years representing American publishers in the international market, has been named director of international sales for Time Warner Trade Publishing. Michel joined the company December 18, replacing Craig Young, who has been named national accounts manager for trade paperbacks at TWTP. Michel reports to John Lyon, v-p, international, for TWTP, who called Michel "probably the industry's best-known international salesperson." Michel's previous experience includes positions at Bantam Doubleday Dell andRandom House.

Staff Changes
Zaleski Succeeds Retiring Steinberg
Sybil S. Steinberg, longtime senior editor of Fiction Forecasts and former head of PW Forecasts and PW Interviews, has retired from Publishers Weekly, effective December 31. She will continue with the magazine as a contributing editor, writing and editing reviews, writing articles and representing the magazine at various industry functions. Steinberg, who joined the PW staff in 1979, edited PW Interviews from 1981 to 1998, became Fiction Forecasts editor in 1983 and headed PW Forecasts from 1990 until 1999.

Jeff Zaleski, PW's Forecasts Editor, will now edit Fiction Forecasts in addition to supervising Nonfiction Forecasts. Peter Cannon, a contributing editor to PW, will edit Mystery Forecasts and SF/Fantasy/Horror Fore- casts, reporting to Zaleski. Cannon is a one-time editor at Crown Publishers and is a noted H.P. Lovecraft scholar. Michael Scharf, also a contributing editor to PW, will edit P try Forecasts, reporting to Zaleski. Scharf is a p try critic who writes the "Metromania" column in P ts & Writers magazine.

National Geographic Launches Travel Series
The National Geographic Society plans to launch a new literary travel book series in the fall of 2001, in consultation with agent Andrew Wylie and featuring many distinguished authors that Wylie represents.

The new series will publish six to 10 books a year and will be called National Geographic Directions. It will showcase original books by such authors as Oliver Sacks, Larry McMurtry, Joyce Carol Oates, Jamaica Kincaid, Paul Theroux, John Edgar Wideman and other Wylie clients. The first list will include 11 authors in all. The books will be published in a number of languages.

Nina Hoffman, president of National Geographic Books, said Directions' authors will write about places around the world, or in their own neighborhoods, that excite or interest them. "While the content will be diverse, the books will have in common a strong personal voice in the tradition of the finest travel literature," Hoffman said.

Events
New Music Show to Coincide with BEA
Reed Exhibition Companies, which operates BookExpo America, will launch a new show aimed at music retailers and distributors. Retail Music Expo (RMX) will be held June 2-3 and will be located with BEA at Chicago's McCormick Place. BEA is set to run June 1-3 at McCormick.

Reed expects more than 200 exhibitors from record labels, record companies, importers and merchandisers to take booths at the event, which will be in McCormickÂ€™s North Hall. BEA buyers and attendees will be able to visit the RMX show for free, although RMX attendees will need to pay if they want to go to BEA. RMX event director Jamie Swanson said the new show will fill a niche in the industry by providing a forum where music industry members can "network, sell product and gain exposure in a cost-effective way." BEA public relations manager Tina Jordan noted that the event will "offer booksellers a convenient way to stock music items for their stores."

Conferences
'PW,' Inside Team Up for Book Summit
Publishers Weekly and Inside, publisher of Inside.com and Inside magazine, will collaborate on a one-day seminar that will examine a host of book industry issues. 2001 Book Industry Summit will be held March 19 in New York City. Nora Rawlinson, editor-in-chief of PW, and Kurt Andersen, cofounder of Powerful Media, Inside's parent company, will organize and moderate the event. Themes to be covered include e-retailing, consolidation, e-books, marketing, copyright and the changing roles of industry members. "We feel it's a particularly important time for leaders in both the traditional and developing areas of the business to come together to share ideas. This conference will be the ideal setting for such an exchange," said Rawlinson. Registration information can be found at www. inside.com/conferences/ publishersweekly.html.

Prizes
Howard, Wood Get Klein Awards
Gerald Howard, vice-president and editorial director at Broadway Books and executive editor at Doubleday, has won the 2000 PEN/Roger Klein Award for editorial excellence, Roger Klein Foundation director Tom Wallace announced. Howard previously held senior editorial posts at New American Library, Viking Penguin and W.W. Norton.

Marian Wood, who has her own imprint, Marian Wood Books, at Putnam, won the award for career achievement. She was an editor at Holt for 25 years, and also ran her imprint there, before moving to Putnam two years ago.

The judges for the awards were literary agents Carl Brandt, Georges Borchardt, Knox Burger and Wallace; Harcourt editor Drenka Willen, who won the editorial award in 1998; and author Sidney Offit. Both winners will be honored at a ceremony early this year.

Agency News
Dystel Buys Client List
Jane Dystel Literary Management Inc. has acquired the client list of Bedford Book Works from founder and owner J l E. Fishman. Fishman, who was also a founder of the short-lived Subrights.com, sold the agency to pursue other interests.

Among the authors joining Dystel are Teri Agins (The End of Fashion), David Lifton (Best Evidence) and John Hubner (Somebody Else's Children). The Bedford acquisition will boost Dystel's client list from more than 250 authors to approximately 300. Founded in 1991, the Dystel agency now has six agents.

Clarification:
The Book Industry Study Group did not review the African-American Book Buyers Survey cited in our feature on African-American publishing (December 11, p. 37), nor did the association examine the survey's methodology or review the figures. The survey was conducted by Target Market News, which supplied the results to PW.

Correction:
The phone number for PW's new Midwest correspondent, Brad Zellar, was incorrectly listed in our December 18 issue. The correct number is (612) 925-8616.