The AAP’s “Annual Meeting for Smaller and Independent Publishers” was devoted, as it has been for the past 6 years, to the small and feisty. Executive Director Pat Schroeder skipped her intro to go attend an “urgent” meeting by the Higher Ed Group to discuss textbook prices, but the conference proceeded with an ebullient and…Continue Reading
PEOPLE CDS’ Stanley Cohen has taken a leave of absence and Steve Black has stepped in as Acting Sales Director. David Wilk, VP of Client Services and Business Development, has taken over some responsibilities and a new Client Services Manager, Kerry Liebling, has been hired. Erin McHugh has been named Director of Creative Services, Trade…Continue Reading
People Latest dope on AOLTWP: with funding tight, Perseus is said to be out of the running, while Random, which raised some capital recently and is looking for a deal, is the likeliest purchaser. Meanwhile, in the latest reshufflings: RH Value Publishing’s President Lynn Bond has left the company, following in the wake of the…Continue Reading
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…Continue Reading
You gotta hand it to SparkNotes, the nervy and boldly proliferating line of literature study guides created by four Harvard seniors and acquired by Barnes & Noble in March 2001. Variously described by the media as “cheeky new book notes,” “kind of a CliffsNotes wanna-be,” and “the last word in literary laziness,” SparkNotes have managed…Continue Reading
PEOPLE Simon & Schuster’s various imprints have been trimmed over the past few weeks: Rachel Klayman has been laid off from The Free Press, Jeff Neuman has left S&S (and may be reached at neudors@yahoo.com), and Rosemary Ahern (who arrived from Dutton less than two years ago), and Kim Kanner and an assistant have departed…Continue Reading
Targeted Sales to Enthusiasts Turn the Off-Beat Into Big Bucks Looking for the bestselling art books in America? Sniffing around the Ansel Adams shelves, perhaps? Nope, not there. Taking a peek at Taschen’s Fetish Girls? Nice try. According to numbers from Nielsen BookScan, you’d better swing by the cartoon section. Because the top art titles…Continue Reading
PEOPLE We will skip over the Thomas Middelhoff debacle, and move on to some moves that are less well covered, including that by a Middelhoff chronicler: The NYT’s David Kirkpatrick is leaving the Book Beat, to cover media, focusing on AOL Time Warner, along with Vivendi, Bertelsmann, and News Corp. His replacement will be named…Continue Reading
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…Continue Reading
This year Publishing Trends abandoned its vendor survey, because trying to rate players in the fulfillment and distribution arena was like trying to judge a warehouse full of Rube Goldberg contraptions — there are too many moving pieces, and they all move in different (some might say mysterious) ways. But one thing is certain: they…Continue Reading
