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B&N Sees Tough Year Ahead
Barnes & Noble said it expects same store sales to be "slightly positive" in 2008 as the country's largest bookstore chain confronts what it calls an uncertain economic environment and a competitive bookselling market. Sales for 2007 rose 2.8%.
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Rinaldi Leaving Bloomsbury for Rodale
Bloomsbury USA president and publisher Karen Rinaldi is leaving the company after nine years to join Rodale Books where she will oversee the publisher's book group with responsibility for marketing Rodale's titles across all platforms. Her departure comes about a month after Bloomsbury cut seven jobs.
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U.S. Drives Gains at Penguin
Solid sales and earnings gains at Penguin Group USA led the profit perfomance for the entire Penguin group where earnings rose 12% to $148 million. Worldwide sales were flat at about $1.69 billion. Excluding currency fluctuations, sales were up 3% and earnings 20%.
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Kate Braestrup and Joshua Ferris Win Barnes & Noble Discover Prize
Two Little, Brown authors took the top prize yesterday in Barnes & Noble’s 15th annual Discover Great New Writers Awards, which, according to B&N, "honor the works of exceptionally talented writers featured in the Barnes & Noble 'Discover Great New Writers' program during the previous year.”
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Random Buys Monacelli Press
Random House has acquired the visual arts book publisher The Monacelli Press, which will operate as a standalone imprint of Random House Inc. Founder Gianfranco Monacelli will continue to direct the press from RH's New York offices.
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Indies' Experiments Pay Off
One thing that unites the fast-growing small presses on this year's list is their willingness to experiment. Whether it's publishing more titles, publishing fewer titles, selling to new markets or expanding into genres they'd only dabbled in up until now, these small publishers are eager to try new things.
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Shambhala Goes Frontlist
Good backlist publishing is earned. You are either publishing classics and books that have already proven themselves, or you are publishing at a consistent and trusted quality in a specific area—selling on your reputation. But in today's marketplace, where used books are widely purveyed (cutting into backlist sales), publishers have to be in the frontlist game.
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Janet Silver Joins Nan A. Talese
Janet Silver, the veteran Houghton Mifflin editor who left in the company's recent reorganization, has joined Nan A. Talese as editor at large.
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David Fickling to Launch Weekly Comic
“In my own experience, the link between reading a comic and reading a book is wonderful and exciting,” says publisher David Fickling, who will launch a comic book program this May called The DFC (The David Fickling Comic). For Fickling, whose London-based, eponymous imprint at Random House publishes children’s books on both sides of the Atlantic, the launch of The DFC reflects his lifelong love of comic books.
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The Future Is Now for Borders
Online, it's called a “mash-up”—when two different genres of music or video are spliced together to form a distinct but familiar creation. Last week, Borders Group unveiled its new concept store—a 28,900-sq.-ft. bookstore in Ann Arbor, Mich.—that convincingly bridges the online world and the real one.
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Borders Debuts New Store Format
Borders unveiled the first of its 14 new concept stores yesterday. The new format emphasizes online interactivity and a fully staffed Digital Center.
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Prydwen Press Sets Sail
Incorporated in Wilmington, Del., and operating from an office in a Victorian house in Antwerp, Prydwen Press will release its debut title in May. The Vanities is written and illustrated by Terence Lawlor, who also founded the press. This is the first book created by the Los Angeles native, a collage artist who has worked in fashion and advertising as a designer and art director.
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Job Fallout as Houghton Reorganizes
As part of the ongoing reorganization at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, a number of staffers have been let go while others have been promoted from within.
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Random House and HC Test Drive Online Access to Their Books
Random House and HarperCollins have both announced new e-initiatives aimed at using technology to sell more print and digital titles.
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AWP: The Place to Be
There were dozens of readings and panels at this year's Association of Writers and Writing Programs annual conference in New York, but the real action took place at the book fair: three floors of booths from more than 400 exhibitors, ranging from bigger indies like Graywolf and Milkweed to university presses like Wesleyan and the University of Georgia, distributors like SPD to prominent and obs...
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Gauging Amazon's Audible Buy
Amazon's pending purchase of Audible has some publishers wondering how the e-tailer will wield its position in the market, while some of Audible's small shareholders are grumbling about the acquisition price and hoping that Apple might still swoop in with a bid. The Audible purchase will make Amazon the most important outlet for spoken-word audio, be it in traditional CD or digital formatsR...
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Analyst Gives Gloomy B&N Forecast
A JP Morgan analyst issue a report yesterday predicting that same-store sales at Barnes & Noble could fall in the current year. The forecast resulted in B&N's stock price falling by more than 10% Tuesday.
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Ferris and Samet Among Finalists for Barnes & Noble Award
Barnes & Noble announced the finalists for its 2007 Discover Great New Writers Awards today. Winners in the fiction and nonfiction categories will each receive $10,000 and a year of promotion through B&N.
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Horton Pops Up
A recent release from Random House’s Robin Corey Books imprint gives a timeless Dr. Seuss tale added dimension. Horton Hears a Who Pop Up!, published this month with a 100,000-copy first printing, features elaborate paper engineering by David A. Carter, including five pop-up spreads, 11 booklets containing additional pop-up scenes, numerous pull-tabs and other special effects.
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More Records for Amazon; Scrambling to Meet Kindle Demand
Sales at Amazon's North America media group, which includes books, rose 29% in 2007, to $4.63 billion, while sales of the Kindle exceeded expectations. The company is working to meet the backlog of orders on its popular e-book reader.
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