People want stories and that means cultivating a publishing ecosystem where big and small can flourishThis week both the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority and the Department of Justice in the US announced investigations into the planned $2.2bn acquisition of the publisher Simon & Schuster by Bertelsmann, which already owns Penguin Random House. The merger, if allowed, would see Bertelsmann have almost one-third of English-language book sales. The move follows a year when a population cocooned at home, reaching for comfort reading, inflated the profits of big publishers. Bloomsbury and Pan Macmillan recently announced that they would be returning furlough payments; HarperCollins did not take them.Many of the UK’s smaller publishers fared rather differently: a Bookseller survey last summer found 60% feared they would cease to exist by autumn. Indies tend not to have the backlists full of household names that, say, a Penguin has; they depend far more on serendipity, on a customer wandering into a shop intending to buy one thing but coming out with something else as well. This happens far less with online shopping; at least one publisher lost up to 90% in sales. Some also found it difficult to qualify for furlough. They took to social media to announce their plight, or to try new selling tactics; some crowdfunded; some received emergency Arts Council England cash. Many were dragged back from the brink, for which we should be grateful. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2021-03-28 17:25:47 UTC ]
Ten days ago, with the coronavirus and the election continuing to dominate the media-industry conversation in the US, Ben Smith, media columnist at the New York Times, briefly steered attention overseas, publishing an interview with the French leader Emmanuel Macron under the bait-and-switch... Continue reading at Columbia Journalism Review
[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2020-11-25 13:32:28 UTC ]
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PRH owner Bertelsmann is to buy Simon & Schuster from ViacomCBS for $2.2bn, it has been announced. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-25 12:40:42 UTC ]
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John Marrs, author of The One (Del Rey), soon to be released as a Netflix series, is moving to Pan Macmillan for two speculative thrillers. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-23 22:09:19 UTC ]
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HarperCollins buys a YA novel composed of interlinked stories by some of the biggest names in the genre, Terry McMillan sells a novel to Ballantine, and more. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-11-20 05:00:00 UTC ]
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Publishers Nosy Crow and Pan Macmillan have been named winners of the FutureBooks Awards: Best of Lockdown, after the week-long virtual conference which culminated in the awards ceremony. The pair won alongside Bath-based bookshop Mr B’s Emporium, the Cheltenham Literature Festival, and academic... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-20 02:37:06 UTC ]
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Stephanie Purcell, group rights director at Simon & Schuster, has been appointed group rights director at Bloomsbury. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-19 19:54:32 UTC ]
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Two major forces in US Christian publishing have entered a two-year partnership to extend their respective reach across their consumer bases. The post HarperCollins Christian Publishing Partners With Urban Ministries Incorporated appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2020-11-19 18:04:42 UTC ]
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The Nature of Middle-earth, a collection of previously unpublished J.R.R. Tolkien essays exploring the world of Middle-earth, will be released by HarperCollins in June 2021. The work will be edited by Carl F. Hostetter, Tolkien expert and head of the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship. These essays... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-11-19 16:26:17 UTC ]
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Robert Thomson, CEO of HarperCollins parent company News Corp, said during the company's annual meeting that a purchase of Simon & Schuster by Penguin Random House "will clearly be a serious antitrust issue." Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-11-19 05:00:00 UTC ]
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HarperCollins is to publish a “treasure trove” of a previously unseen collection of writings exploring Middle-earth penned by J R R Tolkien, in the decades after The Lord of the Rings was published. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-18 16:04:28 UTC ]
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A “seismic shift” to online shopping during the pandemic has fuelled a “crazy” market for acquisitions of big names, HarperCollins UK c.e.o. Charlie Redmayne has said. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-17 23:24:16 UTC ]
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As you may have noticed, Barack Obama has a book out today. It’s a memoir, titled A Promised Land, that runs to more than seven-hundred pages and is still only a first volume—covering the period from Obama’s childhood to the raid, in 2011, that killed Osama bin Laden. Originally, Obama planned... Continue reading at Columbia Journalism Review
[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2020-11-17 13:29:32 UTC ]
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HarperCollins has signed a multi-book deal with author Alex Brown which will see her published across its HarperFiction and One More Chapter imprints. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-13 04:02:24 UTC ]
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Lesley Lokko is moving from Orion to Pan Macmillan with two “intoxicating” multi-generational novels. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-12 06:30:43 UTC ]
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Pantomime misanthropy is tempered with bursts of sweetness in the secondhand bookseller’s latest dispatches from WigtownThere’s a moment in the first season of the short-lived but influential sitcom Black Books in which an elderly customer appears with a box of attractive old editions of... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-11-11 09:00:33 UTC ]
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HarperCollins has pre-empted an "irresistible" trilogy based on the hit feminist erotic podcast "Dirty Diana", which stars Demi Moore. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-10 03:03:15 UTC ]
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With most of the British Isles going back into lockdown over the past few weeks, The Bookseller is inviting people from across the trade to share their thoughts and experiences. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-09 01:38:36 UTC ]
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HarperCollins saw global sales increase 13% year on year in the latest quarter, with EBITDA rocketing 45%, partly thanks to a surge in digital spending. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-08 20:58:09 UTC ]
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HarperCollins Children’s Books has signed Noa and the Little Elephant: A Tale of Friendship and Survival, a “poignant” picture book from author and illustrator Michael Foreman, in partnership with the wildlife conservation charity, Tusk. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-08 16:02:51 UTC ]
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As I wrote back in March, the enforced closing of bookshop doors is a terrible story for the editor of The Bookseller to report: it’s a gut-punch, and if you were on social media last Saturday at around 6.30 p.m.—when the Prime Minister announced the decision to shut non-essential retail in... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-11-05 23:57:12 UTC ]
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