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Harcourt Sale Moving Forward
Reed said it still expects the sale of Harcourt Education to Houghton Mifflin to be completed by late 2007 or early 2008.
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HarperCollins Has ‘Lousy Quarter’
Terrible results in the U.K. and declines in the U.S. children's group were the main factors behind an 11.5% decline in first quarter sales at HarperCollins. Profits at the publisher tumbled nearly 53%. CEO Jane Friedman acknowledged it was a "lousy quarter," but said things have improved early in the second period.
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Wiley, Near-Time Build Book-Based Websites
John Wiley has entered a partnership with Near-Time, a small North Carolina technology developer, to use its wiki-based software to easily turn technical books into revenue producing, interactive online publishing platforms.
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Houghton Hits Cell Phones
Houghton Mifflin has signed with Mobifusion to deliver electronic versions of its books to cell phones. Joining the ranks of publishers like Avalon and Simon & Schuster—which already work with the tech company—Houghton will focus on generating mobile-friendly versions of its titles, focusing on its reference and children’s books.
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Christian Indies Banding Together to Survive
With Christian books now sold in all kinds of general retail outlets, the past several years have been tough on independent Christian retailers. Hundreds of stores have sold out to one of the growing Christian chains. Outgoing CBA chairman Chris Childers sold his family’s Macon Christian Bookstore in Macon, Ga.
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Harlequin Gets Serious About Nonfiction
Harlequin’s plans to enter the nonfiction market have begun to take shape in recent weeks. Last month the company signed radio talk-show host Delilah to a three-book contract (Deals, Oct. 8), with her first book likely to be the lead nonfiction title when it is released next October. Last week, the company announced that McGraw-Hill editor Deb Brody has been hired as executive editor for ...
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From Prose to Manga
This fall, Digital Manga Publishing, an independent manga publisher in Southern California, will release its first original manga, an adaptation of Japanese novelist Hideyuki Kikuchi's popular prose novel series, Vampire Hunter D, which will be published simultaneously in the U.S., Japan and Europe.
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Wiley Hits 200
Business books are filled with examples of family-owned businesses that have been sold to a company with deeper pockets. The most recent case is that of the Bancrofts, who, after a drawn-out debate, decided to sell the Dow Jones Company to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. So how has the Wiley clan been able keep control of the publishing house that began in 1807 as a print shop in New York City?
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Amazon Book Prize Capped; ‘Tycoons’ Wins FT
Amazon's new contest for first time authors has reached it limit of 5,000 submissions. The eventual winner will be published by Penguin.
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Penguin Sales Up 2%; Publisher Pulls Out of eMusic Deal
Pearson reported this morning that sales at Penguin rose 2% for the first nine months of the year; the company reiterated that for the full year it expects the publisher to have improved operating margins.
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Naggar Leaving Random
David Naggar, who runs three different Random divisions, will leave the company by the end of the year.
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Guernica: Lit Mag Beats the Odds
Former M.F.A. students Joel Whitney and Michael Archer had no grand plan, much less a business plan, when they started the online-only lit mag Guernica. Compelled by a shared passion for international literature and serious journalism, the duo, who met during a teaching program in Puerto Rico, decided to try their hand at publishing a magazine and launched their vision online.
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Indie Houses Try Social Networking
Larger publishers and authors have been doing it for some time, and now independent presses are experimenting with ways to use social networking sites, promoting their books and authors on Facebook and MySpace, as well as on sites more specifically geared toward bibliophiles, like Shelfari and LibraryThing.
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McGraw-Hill Education Posts Strong Third Quarter
With both its school group and higher education, professional and international groups posting solid gains, third quarter revenue at McGraw-Hill Education rose 9.9%, to $1.12 billion. Sales of digital products contributed to the increase.
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Olivieri to Leave Wiley-Blackwell
René Olivieri will leave as COO of John Wiley's STM subsidiary, Wiley-Blackwell, at the end of the year.
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B&N Adds Mobile Sales Partner
Barnes & Noble has teamed with the mobile commerce provider Digby to sell books, music and movies to BlackBerry users.
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B&N's and Borders's New Sites
This month, BN.com received a major makeover and Borders released a test version of its new site (http://beta.bordersstores.com/online/store/Home). Here's a comparison of the sites' new offerings.
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Can Small Press Distributors Survive?
The recent liquidation of Sarasota, Fla.—based BookWorld Companies, coupled with National Book Network's announcement just two months ago that it will phase out small-press specialty sister company, Biblio, highlights the fragile economics that underpin the distribution of self-publishers and presses that do just a handful of books.
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RH Films Debuts
What are book people doing in the movie business?” This was the question Random House Films president Peter Gethers said he kept hearing after his new division was announced in 2005. Speaking to a crowd at the recent New York gala screening of RH Films' first feature, Reservation Road, Gethers was in a decidedly celebratory mood; the film's debut had proven, as the RH team noted, that th...
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Macmillan Rises from the Dustbin
Last week's announcement that Holtzbrinck's U.S. businesses have been rebranded Macmillan restored a name that had once been among the most prominent in American publishing, including a long run as an independent, publicly traded company. The demise of Macmillan—and its name—began in 1988 when the company became the target of corporate raider Robert Maxwell.
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