News Briefs: Week of 9/8/08

Ed Volini, deputy chairman and chief operating officer of Random House North America, will leave the publisher September 30. Volini oversaw acquisitions and Random House of Canada, as well as the financial, human resources, legal, administrative and sales functions. No successor for Volini is planned, and executives who had reported to him will now report to new Random CEO Markus Dohle.

The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group has acquired the assets of the supplementary publisher Sundance/Newbridge from Haights Cross. The acquisition, which includes 2,400 titles, moves RLPG into the k–8 educational publishing field. Haights Cross had placed Sundance up for sale last November and earlier this year approved a “winding down” of its business, although the publisher still posted sales of just under $11 million in the first half of 2008.

Random House South Africa has merged with Struik Publishing to form a new company known as Random House Struik. The new publisher will be led by Stephen Johnson, formerly managing director of RH South Africa, who will report to Brian Wootton, CEO of New Holland Publishing, the former sole owner of Struik, which holds a 50.1% stake in RH Struik. The company will publish books by local authors in English and Afrikaans, and will also be home to international authors published by Random House.

Sales in Bloomsbury's U.S. division rose 10% in the first half of 2008, to £6.4 million ($11.6 million), and the company trimmed its operating loss to £354,000 from £892,000. The company said sales and profitability improved in both its fiction and nonfiction segments, as well as at Bloomsbury Press. Sharing of copyrights with other Bloomsbury units and a greater focus on export sales also helped to lift results.

For all of the U.K.-based Bloomsbury, revenue fell 18%, to £42.1 million, and pretax profits rose 6%, to £3.5 million. In last year's first half, Bloomsbury enjoyed strong gains from the export sales of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

After a partial draft of Stephenie Meyer's forthcoming novel, Midnight Sun, was leaked online, the author has put the project on hold “indefinitely.” In a post on her Web site, Meyer wrote: “I think it is important for everybody to understand that what happened was a huge violation of my rights as an author, not to mention me as a human being.” Publisher Little, Brown said no decisions have been made as to when Sun, the latest in Meyer's Twilight Saga, will be published.

A lawsuit filed by Sharon Lechter against Robert Kiyosaki and his wife, Kim, has been settled, with Lechter receiving an undisclosed sum. Lechter was a co-author with Robert Kiyosaki of several bestselling titles in the Rich Dad Poor Dad series and helped launch the Rich Dad Co. Under the agreement, the Kiyosakis have bought out Lechter's stake in the company.