People April is the cruelest month for some; but for others, it’s been a banner one. And for the industry as a whole, there’s been a whirlwind of activity, with enough moves, consolidations, entries and exits to rival a Feydeau or Frayn farce. Sara Nelson, Glamour’s Senior Contributing Editor, Books, and columnist for The New…Continue Reading
It’s just possible that vanity presses — or print-on-demand subsidy publishers, as most prefer to be called — may be improving their reputations and, in some cases, even gaining respect among traditional publishers. Not only is the list of self-published books that have been picked up by traditional houses growing, but the vanity presses are…Continue Reading
PEOPLE Following the doldrums of December, January brought some major moves, including Michael Jacobs’ sortie from Scholastic, and David Steinberger’s installation as the President and CEO of the Perseus Books Group. Movement is everywhere: Random House has combined its two separate retail sales forces into a single unit, resulting in the departure of at least…Continue Reading
PEOPLE Bonnie Ammer has been named to the newly created position of EVP, Publisher at Large, Random House Worldwide, reporting directly to Peter Olson. Her current job as Publisher, Fodor’s Travel Publications, and President, Random House Information Group, will be assumed by David Naggar, who will continue as President, Random House Audio and Diversified Publishing…Continue Reading
S&S, Scholastic Among Houses Pondering the Product Pipeline While a well-oiled supply chain has been an obsession among other industries over the last two decades, book publishers have only recently begun to put the product pipeline front and center on the radar screen as they try to banish “inventory obsolescence” — products washing up on…Continue Reading
Last month PT surveyed the bulging book-bags of client distribution players in the US, and a report to be released this month from the British Publishers Association indicates that a bundle of business from across the pond may well be coming their way. The US Book Market: A Survey and Route Map for UK Publishers,…Continue Reading
Random Redux, Freese Helms PGW: Client Distribution Biz Jostles and Grows Don Fehr, nearly a year into his tenure as Director of Smithsonian Books, needed a distribution fix. The august publishing concern (formerly Smithsonian Institution Press) was gunning for trade sales growth — aiming to reverse its mix of 80% academic and 20% trade-bound titles…Continue Reading
BookExpo America Lands in LA, With Bouts of ‘Book Fair Fatigue’ By nearly all accounts, it’s a beastly time for a book convention. You’ve got the gangrenous economy. War-torn travel itineraries. SARS shut-downs. And cash-strapped rep groups (who’ve already splurged for sales conferences on the east coast). Throw in a liberal dose of what some…Continue Reading
70,000-Odd Small Publishers Might Be Wagging Your Dog They’re out there — all 73,000 of them — scrabbling for your shelf-space, mucking up your mindshare. That’s the number of book publishers in the US, according to Bowker’s Books in Print database, and it has nearly doubled in the past decade. Blame the go-go ’90s, the…Continue Reading
Ingram Book Group Scans for Growth, As Rivals Grab Core Market Share The last decade must have felt a little like the spin-cycle hit Ingram Industries Inc., that constellation of “books, boats, and bad drivers” (as one wag has put it) that began as an old-economy barging concern and now controls a large share of…Continue Reading
