Lunch for Thursday, April 24

Another Jump for Amazon
Even with the bar set pretty high, Amazon met or exceeded analysts' consensus expectations with first quarter sales of $4.13 billion, up 37 percent, and net income of $143 million, up 30 percent from a year ago. Yet the company's earnings guidance for the next quarter stayed the same, even as they foresee another strong rise in sales of between 34 percent and 41 percent. That renews investor concerns about the company's margins and is taking the stock down today after a sharp run-up over the past two months.
 
Of course publishers only care about what the e-tailer is selling, not how much they are making. The numbers in the "media" section that comprises books (along with music and DVDs) were a little less spectacular though still solid, hewing closer to the recent trendline as North American media sales rose 22 percent to $1.205 billion for the quarter. Helped along by strong foreign currencies, international media sales actually outpaced domestic sales, comprising $1.338 billion, rising 34 percent. The company had much sharper gains in electronics and general merchandise and "other."
 
In the conference call, asked about the upcoming imposition of sales tax in New York, cfo Thomas Szkutak said "it would be early to comment on any state activity as it relates to sales taxes, but certainly we do collect sales tax or value-added tax in the states or countries that require us to do so, and we do that activity and approaching 50% of our total business. We do collect some type of sales tax or value-added tax. And we have great businesses in those states and countries that we do do that."
 
There were few details about Kindle, save that Jeff Bezos noted, "Just as of a couple of days, Kindle is where we have always wanted it to be, which is in stock.... We have worked hard to get Kindle detail page to say Availability: In Stock."
 
While the company's recent moves on POD don't concern the analysts asking the questions, Bezos did emphasize the company's efforts to get more inventory eligible for "Prime" shipping, which is part of the rationale for the change in policy on POD books: "We have this Amazon Prime customer experience. We want that to work for third-party sales and for third-party sellers.
 
"What we are working to do with fulfillment by Amazon is make it possible for third party sellers to stow their inventory in our fulfillment centers so that we can offer the same level of service to our customers for those third party items that we do for the Amazon owned inventory.
 
"We are seeing a lot of happy sellers with fulfillment by Amazon and it is certainly great for customers, in part because they can get one box instead of two. So if they order something from Amazon and at the same time they order something from a third party seller, if we have that item in inventory we get to marry those two items together, ship them in one box. It's a better customer experience. It saves transportation costs, transportation fuel, and it just works out better. There's enough system wide cost savings that we can offer fulfillment by Amazon to the third party sellers at a very attractive price."
Company Release
Conference Call Transcript at SeekingAlpha

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Every day, we gather, report, recap and interpret the most publishing news, deal transactions, and job offers anywhere. Today's Lunch Deluxe includes these additional stories and links:
Amazon Digital Offerings Still Lag?
Meanwhile at Borders/Paperchase
HCUK Joins ePubbers
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Starbucks to Sell Racing in the Rain
The coffee chain's next featured book selection will be Garth Stein's THE ART OF RACING IN THE RAIN. Starbucks Entertainment head Ken Lombard says it was picked because it's "an inspirational story told from such a unique perspective." The novel will be featured in more than 7,000 Starbucks locations as of the laydown date of May 13.
USAT

Solid Profit at Quarto
Quarto Group reported a solid quarter, with sales of 21 million pounds, lifted primarily by the inclusion of 3.2 million pounds following their acquisition of MBI. Operating profit, while still meager at 268,000 pounds, was up from the same time last year. Citing a 15 percent rise in their co-edition business in particular, the company said the results "suggest that our areas of book publishing are rising above wider economic uncertainties."
Thomson Financial

Personnel News
Vancouver's Seventh Avenue Literary Agency has hired Gloria Goodman as an agent on a part-time basis. She has worked at Key Porter Books and in the Random House Canada rights department.
 
Yvette Romero has joined Bloomberg Press as director of marketing and sales. She has held various marketing and publicity positions at Kaplan Publishing, Prentice Hall Press, Random House Value, Scholastic, and Monteiro & Co.
 

Lots of New Jobs
Our industry-leading Job Board remains busy with more new listings just since yesterday morning, joining over 100 opportunities in all still live from the past month.
 
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.
 
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Senior Project Manager, Print and Electronic  [Full Time]
Greenwood Publishing Group (westport, CT)
 
Resource Coordinator  [Full Time]
Heart of America Foundation (Washington, DC)
 
Associate Education Acquisitions Editor  [Full Time]
Peter Lang Publishing (New York, NY)
 
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Lunch for Wednesday, April 23

Son Decides to Publish Last Nabokov Novel
Vladimir Nabokov's son Dmitri has told Germany's Der Spiegel that he has finally decided to ignore his father's instructions to burn his final manuscript, THE ORIGINAL OF LAURA, and will instead have it published. Dmitri said, "I'm a loyal son and thought long and seriously about it, then my father appeared before me and said, with an ironic grin, 'You're stuck in a right old mess - just go ahead and publish!'"
 
Dmitri has called the manuscript "the most concentrated distillation of [my father's] creativity."
Guardian blog

Thomas Nelson Cuts Staff
The religious publisher laid off "about 60" employees yesterday, or what the company calls "slightly less than 10 percent of our workforce," as part of their previously announced program to cut their publishing list in half to concentrate more energy on fewer titles. Cuts were made at all levels, including a number of executives.
 
CEO Michael Hyatt writes on his blog, "This was not an easy decision. It fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say this was one of the most difficult decisions of my tenure Thomas Nelson."
 
He adds, "Honestly, our layoffs weren't the result of the economy. They didn't happen because we had a bad year. (Our fiscal year ended March 31.) To be sure, it wasn't a great year. But it was decent. We saw modest growth on the top line (about 4%) and really good growth on the bottom line (about 14%)."
 
Rather, it was "because we have changed our business strategy." The company previously announced that they would cut their new title output in half. "Since we cutting the number of titles we are publishing, we are also adjusting our overall business model and reducing our overhead." At the company's recent "open house" with top accounts, Hyatt said, "We don't need more books, we need better books. We're going to spend even more time to make sure that the products are right before they go out."
Hyatt blog
Tennessean

The Most News that the Business Uses
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Finally, Someone Tries Printing Wikipedia
Reed Reminded of Broken Promise to Sell Arms Shows
Self-Published Memoir Shortlisted for PEN/Ackerley Prize
More Winehouse Deal Rumors
A Sample e-Royalty Statement
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Personnel News
Penguin Group cfo Nigel Portwood will move over to the new role of evp, global operations for the group. Still based in the US, his "principal responsibility will be to drive forward and co-ordinate the modernization and integration of Penguin's publishing operations around the company. He will be responsible for technology planning and implementation across the company, and also for the redesign of the company's processes in areas such as workflow and production." Filling his post as cfo is Coram Williams, currently head of financial planning and analysis at parent company Pearson. Williams will remain based in London and joins the Penguin Group Board.

R&L Buys Bernan
Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group has acquired Bernan Associates, a publisher and distributor of U.S. government and intergovernmental publications, accounting for approximately 15 percent of the Government Printing Office's total sales program output, and Bernan's UNIPUB division, a distributor for international organizations since 1955. Bernan had been owned by the Kraus Organization. They say the acquisition "complements Rowman & Littlefield's Government Institutes, which the company acquired in 2004."

Harlequin Picks Vendor
Harlequin will use LibreDigital's Internet Digital Warehouse solution to drive their widgets and online book browsing

Free BookMooching Sells Books (and Makes Affiliate Cash) "By Accident"
BookMooch is an online site that enables participants to swap books for free, but as CNet reports, much to the surprise of founder John Buckman, the site generates approximately $500,000 annually in Amazon sales. They report, "for every 25 books swapped on BookMooch, at least one person buys a new book on Amazon through the Moochbar."
 
"We're making money by accident," Buckman told a group of students recently. "This is meant to be a noncommercial business, with no ads and no fees," he said, but with continued scaling, "It seems to me we should be able to trade more books than Amazon sells."
CNet
 

More New Jobs
Our industry-leading Job Board remains busy with 7 more new listings just since yesterday morning, joining about 100 opportunities in all still live from the past month.
 
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.
 
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Designer-Grand Central Publishing  [Full Time]
Hachette Book Group USA (New York, NY)
 
Art Director  [Full Time]
Hachette Book Group USA (New York, NY)
 
Editorial Director  [Full Time]
Globe Pequot Press (Guilford, CT)
 
Photo Research Associate  [Full Time]
becker&mayer! (Bellevue, WA)
 
Book Scout  [Full Time]
linda clark associates (New York, NY)
 
Director of Public Relations  [Full Time]
HarperCollins Publishers (New York, NY)
 
Senior Marketing Manager  [Full Time]
HarperCollins Publishers (New York, NY)
 
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Lunch for Monday, April 21

Signet Drops Cassie Edwards over Plagiarism Claims
Publisher Signet said on Friday in a statement that it had "conducted an extensive review of all its Cassie Edwards novels and due to irreconcilable editorial differences, Ms. Edwards and Signet have mutually agreed to part ways. Cassie Edwards novels will no longer be published with Signet Books. All rights to Ms. Edwards' previously published Signet books have reverted to the author."
 
The investigation was initiated after the Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Books site posted numerous instances of passages they said were copied from historical works. At first Signet defended Edwards' work as protected by fair use, saying her "researched historical novels are precisely the kinds of original, creative works that this copyright policy promotes."
 
But Penguin Group star author Nora Roberts quickly joined the chorus of dissenters: "By my definition, copying another's work and passing it as your own equals plagiarism. As a writer, a reader and a victim of plagiarism, I feel very strongly on this issue. I'm not a lawyer, but I can't see it as fair use, or fair anything when one writer takes another's work."
 
On the Dear Author blog, Roberts expresses new hope that Edwards' other publishers will also take action: "As for the other publishers, the optimist on my right shoulder hopes they also take the matter seriously and respond accordingly. The cynic on my left isn't holding her breath."
AP

Zagats Close to a Deal?
NY Magazine says "it looks like Tim and Nina Zagat are nearing a deal to sell their guidebook company," having postponed a trip to the Far East "to deal with negotiations, which could lead to a deal by June." The column adds that "one unexpected suitor is CBS, drawn by the brand and its online content." (CBS does happen to own a book publishing company, too.... )
NY Mag

Hyperion Tries to Catch Up Last Lecture Back Orders
BN vp of trade buying Antoinette Ercolano says of demand for Randy Pausch's THE LAST LECTURE, "We have some books in stock, but it's not across the board," indicating reprints are arriving "in dribs and drabs." Borders indicates some stores "are out, but overall nationwide, we have a good in-stock rate."
 
After a laydown of 330,000 copies (and a first printing of 400,000), Hyperion ordered early reprints of 150,000 copies but was still caught far short after the ABC special on April 9. The publisher ordered another 950,000 copies shortly thereafter, and predicts 2 million copies in print by mid May.
 
In their article, the Wall Street Journal reveals that it "has a financial interest in the book and is helping to promote it."
WSJ

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IACP Cookbook Award-Winners
Literary Young Men and Their First Novels
Meanwhile, Everything's Coming Up Crosley
Rushdie Contemplates Last Few Books
How Many "Best Games Ever" Will Get a Book?
Best Crime Writers
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Personnel News
Agent Jason Anthony is joining Lippincott Massie McQuilkin and will be expanding their list in commercial fiction, true crime and narrative nonfiction, among other areas. Previously he was with Zachary Shuster Harmsworth and for many years worked as a film executive.
 
Also joining Lippincott Massie McQuilkin is Rachel Vogel, who will be assisting the Beth Vesel Agency as well, and was most recently a junior scout at Maria B. Campbell Associates.
 
iUniverse has hired Shelley Rogers as publishing programs manager, overseeing the marketing and distribution for their editorial and sales recognition programs, including the Star Program.

Sobel Reflects
Jofie Ferrari-Adler's latest interview in the Poets & Writers series with publishing veterans is with agent Nat Sobel. Excerpts:
 
-- "It's only been in the last twenty years, or maybe the last ten years, that I became aware, as did Judith [Weber], that we wanted the agency to reflect our tastes, rather than just take on things that were saleable. Our list is our taste. Which means that there are a lot of areas of publishing that we will not go into because we aren't interested in them. So we've never done any romances, for instance."
 
-- "I think what is evolving today for agents is that they need to be the first line editors for their authors. Judith and I really love the editing process. We have spent years editing nearly every novel we've ever agented. We did that long before we began to discover how little editing was going on in the publishing houses. But today agents need to be far more proactive in almost every other area of the publishing process. We have to be the marketing directors for many of our books. We have to involve ourselves in looking at the jacket design, the jacket copy, the catalogue copy. We have to be very proactive in how we help direct the writer to help sell his or her book. Those are things you never thought about in agenting when I first came into it. You made the deal, you negotiated the contract, and that was it—the publisher took over."
 
-- "Recently, it didn't get a lot of attention, but Random House fired some of its most experienced sales reps. These were people who were better paid and had been with the company for a long time. The guy who they reported to finally had to quit himself because he couldn't face having to fire some of the best reps they had, who were going to be replaced by new, young, and cheaper people. But somebody forgot along the line that these reps had built up a rapport with booksellers. They could get a bookseller to take a chance on a book that they were enthusiastic about."
 
-- "I don't get too many form rejection letters anymore. I usually respond by sending my own form rejection letter to the editor. I tell the editor, "Our agency no longer accepts form rejection letters and we have decided to remove you from our submission list.... . The editors who tell you specifically what it is that they didn't like about the book are valuable. And you don't get too much of that. You talk about editing in the publishing world? Getting intelligent responses to our manuscripts is almost as important for us as getting an offer is, these days. You don't get too much of that."
Full interview
 

Lots of New Jobs
We added another 6 new jobs to our industry-leading Job Board since Friday if you haven't checked in.
 
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.
 
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Sr. Manager, Business Development - Digital  [Full Time]
Random House (New York, NY)
 
Custom Publishing Associate  [Full Time]
Chronicle Books (San Francisco, CA)
 
Digital Community Builder Assistant/Book Publishing  [Full Time]
Berrett-Koehler Publishers (San Francisco, CA)
 
Publicist  [Full Time]
Carol Fass Publicity and Public Relations (New York, NY)
 
Associate Production / Managing Editor - Bantam Dell  [Full Time]
Random House (New York, NY)
 
Assistant to the Director of Foreign Rights  [Full Time]
Writers House LLC, a literary agency (New York, NY)
 
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