News and opinion on the changing world of book publishing
July 2009
PEOPLE ROUNDUP Seven people have been laid off from Kaplan, including Director of National Accounts, Bill Huelster (who may be reached at bhuelster [at] gmail.com) and Yulia Borodyanskaya, International Sales and Subsidiary Rights (yborodyanskaya [at] yahoo.com). Kaplan is moving the selling responsibility to its distributor, Simon & Schuster, and Mary Dolan, Executive Director of Sales, [...]
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May 2005
Lines Between the Christian and Trade Markets Continue to Blur With Growth on All Fronts As the entire world raptly parses the papacy, smack in the middle of an overtly faith based presidency, it should come as no surprise that religious books have achieved double-digit growth every month for the past few years. Evangelical viewpoints [...]
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November 2003
With trusty correspondents fanned out over the big-box landscape this October, word comes back that while bestsellers and brand names are alive and well, who controls those brands varies depending on the venue. At Sam’s Club, for instance, the publisher of record for Williams-Sonoma is Simon & Schuster (The Williams-Sonoma Collection), while at Costco, it’s [...]
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July 2003
“Not your father’s New Age,” trade rag New Age Retailer’s current marketing tagline, was the message being touted at the 2003 International New Age Trade Show (INATS) West on June 28-30 at the Denver Merchandise Mart. What began as a metaphysical and jewelry show in 1996 has grown three times in size to its current [...]
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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 [...]
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May 2003
Beefing Up Special Sales, Publishers Surf the Downturn Be it a defensive maneuver, market opportunism, or plain necessity, a number of major book publishers are blocking and tackling their way into nontraditional retail accounts like never before. And no wonder, you might say. “You look at the relative flatness in the book trade, and it’s [...]
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June 2002
As Riggio Guns for Lower Prices, There’s No Sure Cure for Sticker Shock Pantyhose, Len Riggio once said, lecturing publishers on the finer price points for L’eggs, sell blissfully at $6.99. But books are not leggings. And if publishers think $6.99 is a good price for the upscale products in bookstores, they’re hosed. Moreover, he [...]
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April 2002
As the great mother ship BookExpo America prepares to set down in New York City on May 1, and the wall-to-wall lineup of bashes, fests, and sundry galas has us all excruciatingly triple-booked, Publishing Trends checked in with a number of show veterans to see whether this year’s industry summit will be a whirlwind of [...]
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March 2002
Just How Big Is The ‘Off-The-Books’ Book Business? Sashay into any Barnes & Noble superstore, and there they are. Past the Barnes & Noble Café–branded 3-piece tea sets (“Great Curves. Excellent Style.”), past the Barnes & Noble–branded laser stationery, the velvet CD wallets, and the handy personal cash boxes, are, of course, the Barnes & [...]
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July 2001
Pass the Chips and Dip, Y’all. Now Buy Some Southern Living Books. You may not see any hot-rodding pink Cadillacs when more than 1,000 salespeople descend upon Birmingham this month to attend the first national convention for Southern Living at Home, the newly minted home sales division of the Southern Living publishing group. Those automotive [...]
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