McArthur & Co. To Close

Veteran Canadian publisher Kim McArthur announced that she is closing her independent publishing house, McArthur & Company. She plans to remain involved in Canadian publishing, however, as a literary agent at McArthur Blumental Creative—a new venture she and entertainment lawyer Miron Blumental are starting up.

April Bookstore Sales Down

Bookstore sales fell to $758 million in April, down 5.5% from the same month in 2012, according to preliminary estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau. The decline is the biggest so far this year and reflects the large sales numbers that the Fifty Shades trilogy began posting last April. For the first four months of 2013, bookstore sales were up 0.5%. For all of retail, April sales rose 4.2% and year-to-date sales were up 3.3%.

IPG Restructures

Independent Publishers Group restructured its sales and marketing divisions, promoting company veteran Mark Voigt to executive v-p, sales. Voigt has been IPG’s national accounts manager. In other changes, Michael Riley has been promoted to sales director, special markets; Jeff Palicki moves into a new role as director, trade sales: independents, libraries, and wholesale accounts; and Mark Noble, a 27-year veteran of the company, will expand his duties as v-p, publisher relations, to include new marketing opportunities.

Tegge Joins LPG

Jeff Tegge, former v-p of sales at IPG, has joined Legato Publishers Group, the recently established distribution unit of Perseus’s PGW that former IPG president Mark Suchomel is overseeing. Tegge has over 20 years of experience in the industry and said he was “thrilled to be joining Mark at Legato.” He will be based in LPG’s Chicago office.

Wells Arms Leaves Bloomsbury

Victoria Wells Arms, the founding editor of Bloomsbury Children’s Books USA, is leaving the company at the end of the month to start her own literary agency. Wells Arms Literary is expected to be up and running by September.

Sales, Earnings Down at EDC

Total sales at Educational Development Corp. for the fiscal year ended February 28, 2013, fell to $25.5 million, down 3% from the previous year, while net earnings dropped 43%, to $802,900. Sales were down in EDC’s publishing division, where revenue fell 1.5%, to $10.8 million, and in the Usborne Books and More group, where sales declined 3.9%, to $14.7 million.

Nagler Moves To RH

Michelle Nagler, editorial director of Bloomsbury Children’s Books, will join Random House Children’s Books on July 15 as associate publishing director of Random House/Golden Books. She will report to v-p and publishing director Mallory Loehr. Projects she worked on while at Bloomsbury include Freckleface Strawberry by Julianne Moore; In Darkness by Nick Lake, which won the 2013 Printz Award; Carrie Jones’s Need series; and Shannon Hale’s Princess Academy: Palace of Stone.

Rebellion Launches Children’s Imprint

Best known for comics featuring iconic character Judge Dredd, U.K. publisher Rebellion is going after a somewhat younger crowd with its new children’s imprint, Ravenstone, which launched at BEA with the June release of Lupus Rex by singer John Carter Cash.

Ravenstone joins Rebellion’s other prose imprints: Solaris, which publishes fantasy, science fiction, and horror, including books by bestselling author James Lovegrove; and Abaddon Books, which presents shared-world fiction, mostly in the urban fantasy genre.