TODAY'S NEWS

Results Not Super at Marvel Publishing
Sales slipped 3% in Marvel’s publishing segment in the second quarter ended June 30, falling to $31.8 million. The company attributed the decline to a drop in sales through the direct (comic bookstore) channel and difficult comparisons to last year’s second quarter when trade paperback editions of Civil War sold well as did limited editions of the comic book series The Dark Tower and The Death of Captain America. Operating income also declined in the quarter, falling 3.3%, to $11.7 million. The decline was due to rising costs for “talent and paper,” Marvel said as well as digital investments. Marvel is investing $4 million in digital initiatives in the year.

For the first six months of 2008, earnings were off 17.5%, to $21.6 million, while revenue dipped 3.6%, to $58.3 million. For the full year, Marvel expects sales in the publishing group to be between $130 million and $135 million, with operating margins of 37% to 40%. In 2007, the publishing unit had sales of $125.7 million and margins of 42%.

Blue Mountain Arts Forms Separate Book Division
By Lynn Andriani
Blue Mountain Arts, publisher of cards, books, calendars and gift items, has formed a dedicated book division that will focus solely on publishing, marketing and selling a line of books and calendars. Frank Masek, who has more than 15 years of publishing experience, most recently at Abrams, will head up sales for the division, while Patti Wayant, who has been editorial manager at Blue Mountain for nearly 25 years, will run editorial and art.

Masek said that in the past Blue Mountain published books sporadically. But successes over the years—most notably To My Daughter With Love, an inspirational tome by Susan Polis Schutz that sold more than 1.5 million copies—spurred the company to build an official, separate publishing program. “It’s time to start building upon that tradition and go forward with a publishing program that publishes books in a consistent manner,” said Masek. Blue Mountain Books will release six to eight titles in spring 2009, 10 to 15 titles in fall 2009, and 24 to 36 titles in 2010. Read on »

Georgia Bookstore Asks for Cash to Relieve Debt
By Edward Nawotka
Wordsmiths Books of Decatur, Ga., which opened in June 2007, has launched a “Save Our Bookstore” campaign to pay off debt. “Our rent and expenses in our initial location were higher than expected,” said owner Zachary Steele, “and we need to raise fifteen, twenty, twenty five thousand dollars, to begin paying off creditors.” Read on »

Harper Won't Rush 'First Circle'
By Rachel Deahl
Harper Perennial, which recently acquired the first English language translation of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's The First Circle, has no plans to rush the book to press following the news of Solzhenistyn's death on Sunday. The publisher, which reissued the three volumes of the author's Gulag Archipelago--arguably Solzhenitsyn's most well known work--in 2007, had been planning a 2009 release date for Circle. That won't change, though the imprint may consider timing the release of First Circle to the anniversary of the author's death.

Harper Perennial publisher Carrie Kania said the imprint views the book as an important piece of modern literature and therefore wants "time to 'do it right.'" Kania is also hoping Circle--censored by Soviet authorities when it was first published in the former USSR in 1968--will result in more interest in Gulag Archipelago. According to Kania, the reissue of Gulag has been a steady seller; the three volumes, along with a fourth abridged single edition, have sold 25,000 copies in total over the last year.

Medallion Press Adds Nonfiction
by Claire Kirch
St. Charles, Ill.-based Medallion Press, best known for their romance fiction list, has announced that it is launching a nonfiction line. The new imprint will focus upon motivational and self-help titles, as well as autobiography and memoir.

The debut release in Medallion’s nonfiction line will be a memoir by Dawn Schiller, The Road Through Wonderland, which will delve into her relationship with porn star John Holmes and its impact upon her life. Actor Val Kilmer, who plays John Holmes in the film The Wonderland Murders (Lion’s Gate 2003), and actress Kate Bosworth, who plays Schiller opposite Kilmer, will both contribute a foreword to the book, scheduled for release in August 2010.

Wonderland will be followed in November 2010 by an as-yet-untitled memoir by Medallion publisher and historical romance author Helen Rosburg, and in January 2011 a motivational book by Staci Boyer, an award-winning master personal trainer and fitness educator. Medallion titles are distributed to the trade by IPG.

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Job Moves: Leonard Joins B&T
Jeff Leonard has been named executive v-p and chief financial officer at Baker & Taylor. Leonard, who arrives from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt where he was v-p and treasurer, will start at B&T on August 11. Before Houghton, Leonard was at the construction supplies distributor Hughes Supply, Inc., and before that, he was corporate controller at Planet Hollywood. He replaces James Melton who announced his resignation last week.

AUTHORS ON THE AIR

Authors on the Air: The Way of the World; Letters to a Bullied Girl; The Night of the Gun
The Today show welcomes Pulitzer-winning journalist Ron Suskind, whose The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism (Harper, $27.95; HarperAudio CD, $39.95) pubs today. The show also profiles teenagers Olivia Gardner, Emily Buder and Sarah Buder--the authors of Letters to a Bullied Girl: Messages of Healing and Hope (Harper, $14.95), which also pubs today. Read on »

PICTURE OF THE DAY

'Great American Books' in Atlanta
At the Great American Bargain Book Show, held in Atlanta August 1-2, Vann James of BookSmart Sales of Birmingham, Ala., logs in a bargain book while Kevin King and David Muskett watch. Submit your pictures here »

JOB OF THE DAY

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