Reed to Sell Business Information Unit
Reed Elsevier announced their intention to sell off Reed Business
Information, their trade magazine division that includes Variety and
PW. CEO Crispin Davis says "its advertising revenue model and the
inherent cyclicality fit less well with the subscription-based
information and workflow solutions focus of Reed Elsevier's strategy."
He also said "broadly, print publishing is flat while online is
growing at around 11 percent a year." Reed
Exhibitions
While the company timed their sale of Harcourt assets perfectly last
year, the RBI sale faces a far different marketplace. Davis
acknowledged in a conference call that the sale may take some time,
saying "Our approach is that we're not going to be rushed into it." He
told analysts, "We don't have any particular buyer in mind, we do think
there will be a wide and strong level of interest in this business both
from strategic and private equity buyers, we are very open minded on
who and when." Reuters says that Numis Securities estimates the
division could sell for $2 billion.
Personnel News
Former Houghton Mifflin publisher Janet Silver is joining Nan A.
Talese/Doubleday as editor at large. Doubleday Broadway president Steve
Rubin says in the announcement, "The addition of Janet to the venerable
publishing tradition of Nan A. Talese not only marks the convergence of
two extraordinary sensibilities but also signals our deep commitment to
the tradition of literary excellence that has always defined Nan's
publishing program."
A Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Houghton's executive managing editor
Becky Saikia-Wilson has been promoted to svp, executive director
editorial operations, design, and creative service.
Cody's Relocates to Smaller Store
Cody's will close its last remaining store on Fourth Street in
Berkeley, CA after 10 years at the end of March, due to "skyrocketing
rents." They will
relocate to a smaller space in downtown Berkeley, taking over a former
Eddie Bauer space at Shattuck Avenue and Allston Way, right by a BART
station, opening on March 24.
Store manager Melissa Mytinger indicates they will change their stock
selection as part of the move: "We've known for a while that we needed
to rethink our mix. The days of the large, general bookstore that
offers both depth and breadth is not a functional model anymore."
Computer books will be eliminated, and they will cut back on business
titles. The store is holding a community meeting to elicit customer
suggestions.
Mercury
News
The Full Story
Today's complete Lunch Deluxe includes stories and
links on:
UK Film Distributor in Book Partnership
Top French Encyclopedia Falls to Wikipedia
Picking The Best of the Booker
Proposal from Man Who Befriended Suspect in Aruba Murder
plus full access to all the newest deals, and the 120 or so from last
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Harlequin Features
Editors in New Podcasts
Harlequin has started posting 20-minute Meet the Editors podcasts,
adding new episodes every two weeks. The first features Melissa
Jeglinski and Diana Ventimiglia. The company says in the release they
are "designed to demystify the concept of the editor as an inaccessible
resource for aspiring authors. Meet the Editors brings the
personalities of the various Harlequin Enterprises editors to the fore
and offers listeners the opportunity to get to know the people that
shape the books they love to read."
Release
E-Mail Update
Topica.com finished fixing their e-mail system problems last night, so
you should have been greeted by a catch-up batch of Lunches from
earlier in the week and the weekly Deals. Sorry to put all that mail in
your box at once, but these glitches were beyond our control.
The system appears to be working fine now, and we're hoping it stays
that way. As you catch up, you'll see an earlier issue has advice on
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industry-leading Job Board, the latest among close to 120 opportunities
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Among the latest:
Marketing and Publicity Manager [Full Time]
Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) (Manhattan Beach, CA)
Sales and Customer Service Executive [Full Time]
Times International Printing (Tarrytown, NY)
Literary Assistant [Full Time]
Trident Media Group (New York, NY)
Acquisitions Editor, Anthropology and Education [Full Time]
Stanford University Press (Palo Alto, CA)
Production Editor [Full Time]
Oxford University Press (New York, NY)
Editor, Life Sciences [Full Time]
Springer Science + Business Media (New York, NY)
Production Editor [Full Time]
HarperCollins Publishers (New York, NY)
Editor, Operations Research and Business Information Systems [Full Time]
Springer Science & Business Media (New York, NY)
Publishersmarketplace.com/jobs
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Kensington Buys Street Lit List
Kensington announced the acquisition of the publishing assets of
Holloway House, "the pioneers of original street lit fiction."
Kensington will publisher the company's backlist as a new imprint,
Holloway House Classics, and will distribute the Robert "Iceberg Slim"
Beck books. They add that they will be "reissuing and distributing
existing Holloway House titles in mass market and new trade formats as
well as looking for new urban fiction which complements their
publishing program." Those efforts will not affect Kensington's Dafina
Books imprint, which continues as a separate unit.
Personnel News
Simon & Schuster Children's announed a reorganization into
three units that president Rick Richter says in a memo is driven by
growth that has brought the division to over $200 million in sales in
2007, "a level that would have been inconceivable not so very long ago."
The primary structural change puts the Aladdin and Pulse imprints into
their own unit. Simon Pulse associate publisher Bethany Buck moves over
to ser ve as vp and publisher of Aladdin/Pulse.
Associate publisher or deputy publisher positions have been created for
each of the three units, and three other positions have been
eliminated
With the promotion of Anastos, Stephanie Voros has been hired as the
new vp, subsidiary rights. She is currently director of subsidiary
Rights for Little Brown Children's and moves over March 10, reporting
to Richter.
Director of Publicity Paul Crichton now reports to vp, marketing Mary
McAveney, "reflecting his division-wide role and the importance of his
department to our overall marketing strategy."
There is also a new "vertical publishing structure in which the
individual imprints will now be responsible for both the hardcover and
paperback publication of their titles," starting with the fall 2009
list.
where he is currently a senior editor specializing in economics,
sociology, and business.
The Full Story
On top of the many stories missing from yesterday's unfortunately late
Lunch, today's full Deluxe edition adds these additional stories:
Drew Gilpin Faust's Academic Hit
Amazon Contest: The Latest Press Release
Patterson for the People
Publicist Hedges on Eminem Book
while our site includes all the latest deals.
Meanwhile, PublishersMarketplace.com always features all of the unique
data and tools that drive business every day: Unlimited access to
deals, our new Top Dealmakers (with 180 lists of busy agents, agencies,
editors and imprints) live contacts, our representation database,
comprehensive coverage of reviews and bestseller lists from all over,
special tools ranging from the Book Tracker to Amazoom, our custom
publishing search index, and the new top reviewers tables.
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focused page views from the publishing world to about 1,300 posted
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More New Jobs
We've added another 12 new job listings to our industry-leading Job
Board since yesterday morning, the latest among about 110 opportunities
still live in all.
For employers, we provide the unbeatable combination of the largest
circulation in the business by far, a total focus on book publishing
only, and the best prices anywhere.
And for job-seekers, we present great new possibilities every day and
conveniences like an RSS ping to keep you posted on every new offering.
Among the latest:
Business Analyst - Crown [Full Time]
Random House (New York, NY)
Sales Manager, National Accounts [Full Time]
Random House (New York, NY)
Marketing Manager, Life Sciences Journals [Full Time]
John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (Hoboken, NJ)
Merchandising Specialist, Books [Full Time]
Amazon.com (Seattle, WA)
Reprint Production Manager [Full Time]
Sterling Publishing Co., Inc. (New York, NY)
Technical Director - Fodor's [Full Time]
Random House (New York, NY)
Online Creative Director - Crown [Full Time]
Random House (New York, NY)
Assistant Marketing Manager [Full Time]
Oxford University Press (New York, NY)
Senior Product Associate [Full Time]
The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, NY)
Editorial Assistant [Full Time]
HarperCollins Publishers (New York, NY)
Marketing Assistant [Full Time]
HarperCollins Publishers (New York, NY)
Production Coordinator [Full Time]
Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (New York, NY)
Publishersmarketplace.com/jobs
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Over 1.1 Million Orman Free Downloads
The Oprah Winfrey Show said in a statement over the weekend that they
provided over 1.1 million free downloads of Suze Orman's book in the
short period that it was available. Orman says in the release: "I
believe WOMEN & MONEY is the most important book I've ever
written. So this was not about getting people to buy the book, but
getting them to read it, and that was the intention behind this offer."
AP
Editorial Cuts at HMH
As part of the integration of Harcourt Trade and Houghton Mifflin,
editors Jane Rosenman, Anton Mueller, and Webb Younce from Houghton and
Stacia Decker from Harcourt are confirmed as leaving the company.
Another African American Bookstore to Close
West Palm Beach, FL's African American Heritage Bookstore "is about to
close its doors." James Drayton, who opened the store in 1991, says:
"For the moment things are down and again as I have said many times, I
don't think things are going to get any better soon, and I just don't
have that much recovery time. I think it's a good time for me to get
out and perhaps enjoy my grand kids a bit more".
Local
news story
Also closing: Washington, DC's Candida's World of Books in Logan
Circle, a travel and international bookstore, after four years in
business, citing both "thin margins" and "constant construction" in the
store's neighborhood.
Washington
City Paper
And Jay Dantry's Jay's Book Stall in Pittsburgh will
close later this year when the lease expires. "After more than 50
years, Jay's Book Stall will close in a few months. Books will be
packed, shelves taken down. There will be no fanfare, no signs
heralding the shop's closure. Like the last page of a long, riveting
novel, Jay's Book Stall will simply end."
The Pittsburgh paper offers many tributes from authors, include former
employee Michael Chabon, who worked there when he was a student.
Pittsburgh
Tribune-Review
Martha Stewart Buys Emeril
Beyond the surrealistic headline, Martha Stewart
Living Omnimedia is "expected to acquire Lagasse's extensive media and
licensed properties for $45 million in cash and $5 million in stock,"
the WSJ reports. Those properties include a dozen cookbooks, along with
his TV shows, cooking products, and of course the Bam B-Q sauce.
WSJ
The Full Story
We've been adding news and news links at the PublishersMarketplace home
page since Friday afternoon, and today's full Lunch collects many
additional stories, including:
Profile of MacAdam/Cage Publisher Poindexter
Author Profiles: Brooks, and Enright
Products Tied to Books? Newspaper Placement Guaranteed
Amazon Wants You to Self-Publish for Kindle
eBooks for eNgland?
LeapFrog Licenses Books for Next Product
while our site rounds-up and condenses all the reviews from Sunday's
top newspapers, along with presenting all the deals from last week.
Meanwhile, PublishersMarketplace.com always features all of the unique
data and tools that drive business every day: Unlimited access to
deals, our new Top Dealmakers (with 180 lists of busy agents, agencies,
editors and imprints) live contacts, our representation database,
comprehensive coverage of reviews and bestseller lists from all over,
special tools ranging from the Book Tracker to Amazoom, our custom
publishing search index, and the new top reviewers tables.
Plus our popular member pages and blogs bring hundreds of thousands of
focused page views from the publishing world to about 1,300 posted
pages every month.
Start the year off with the most publishing information and resources
available anywhere, yours for our basic monthly fee.
Join here
Robbe-Grillet Dies
French writer Alain Robbe-Grillet, 85, died on Monday. "Robbe-Grillet
became a cult figure among France's postwar intelligentsia with a genre
of novel-writing that rejected conventions such as plot,
characterization and emotion. It effectively launched a type of
semi-philosophical fiction in which nothing much happens but a vast
amount is noticed, imagined or thought."
Reuters
More New Jobs
We've added another 7 new job listings to our industry-leading Job
Board since yesterday morning, the latest among over 110 opportunities
still live in all.
For employers, we provide the unbeatable combination of the largest
circulation in the business by far, a total focus on book publishing
only, and the best prices anywhere.
And for job-seekers, we present great new possibilities every day and
conveniences like an RSS ping to keep you posted on every new offering.
Among the latest:
Sales Assistant on Major Education Account [Full Time]
RR Donnelley (New York, NY)
Sales Rep/Account Manager - Juvenile Books [Full Time]
RR Donnelley (New York, NY)
Editor-in-Chief, Crossings Book Club [Full Time]
DirectGroup North America (New York, NY)
Production Editor, Journals [Full Time]
John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (Hoboken, NJ)
Production Editor, Books [Full Time]
John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (Hoboken, NJ)
Production Assistant [Full Time]
Modern Language Association of America (New York, NY)
Manager - Online Marketing Analysis [Full Time]
Random House (New York, NY)
Publishersmarketplace.com/jobs
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