“The single hardest thing to do in business is to make a deal, whether you’re buying or selling.” Former SouthComm, Inc. COO Blair Johnson knew the magnitude of the task before him when, in November 2017, the company’s equity backer Solidus ousted CEO Chris Ferrell and indicated its desire to exit the publishing business within eight months. “At that time, Solidus had decided they wanted to liquidate their position and get out of SouthComm,” Johnson tells Folio:. “[Managing partner] Vic Gatto and the board made a decision that we needed to do it, and do it quickly, and that Chris was probably not the right person to do it. He likes to buy and build, and it’s a different strategy when you have to liquidate.” And so Solidus handed the company reins to Johnson—who took over as CEO—and CFO Bob Mahoney, and the pair immediately began the process of selling off a company that comprised alt-weeklies serving five different cities, a robust b2b media business, and hundreds of employees, among other assets. In a b2b-media space characterized by frequent mergers and acquisitions, the circumstances may have felt a bit like déjà vu all over again for Johnson, who had arrived at SouthComm from Cygnus Business Media in 2015 after four years helping transition that company from bankruptcy to breakup. “We essentially had eight different entities that we had to find a new home for,” Johnson continues. “Clearly, the biggest of these was the b2b assets from legacy Cygnus.” The relative... Continue reading at 'Folio Magazine'
[ Folio Magazine | 2018-08-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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They’ve done ghosts and zombies and vampires and ghosts and freaks and witches and also ghosts, but co-creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk will have to come up with a brand-new spooky concept as FX renews “American Horror Story” for a sixth season. The first four seasons of the popular... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2015-11-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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David Almond introduces a gallery that opens doors into the stunning illustrated children’s books coming out of Iran including The Little Black Fish, a book that is beloved in Iran and now published in the UK for the first time Continue reading... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-11-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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On Tuesday, Amazon, the largest bookseller in the world, did something it has never done: it sold a book to a customer face-to-face. Despite appearances Amazon Books, the company's first branded retail storefront, is a far cry from the bookstore as we know it. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-11-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Nosy Crow is publishing a retelling of the nativity story to raise money for War Child, a charity that supports Syrian refugee children. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-10-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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This week, Jonathan Franzen's latest book, "Purity," tops the Los Angeles Times bestseller list after seven weeks on the chart. Franzen is among America's most high-profile novelists, and he likely reached many new readers with an appearance on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert." In a sketch... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2015-10-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Audible has commissioned a dramatization of Carmilla, a 19th century gothic vampire novella by J. Sheridan Le Fanu, starring David Tennant and Rose Leslie. The story, first published in 1872, pre-dates Bram Stoker’s Dracula by over two decades. The story is about 18-year old Laura (played by... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-10-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Allen Lane, while knighted for services to literature, was never much of a reader. Were brothers Richard and John written out of their own bestselling story?Eighty years ago, three brothers – Allen, Richard and John Lane – founded Penguin Books in London. The brothers planned the venture in... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-10-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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In the French city of Grenoble, there are unusual vending machines that don't dispense soda or snacks -- they print out short stories that look like paper receipts instead. These machines were built by a publishing company called Short Éditi... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2015-10-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Michael Morpurgo has donated his archive, including a handwritten draft of Private Peaceful (HarperCollins Children’s Books) and material relating to the stage and screen adaptations of War Horse (Egmont), to Newcastle based children's literature centre Seven Stories. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-10-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Anthology of uncollected writings should secure a reappraisal of notorious occultist, says publisherAleister Crowley, the occultist once dubbed the “wickedest man in the world”, is due for a reassessment as a short-story writer, according to a new anthology of his uncollected writing which... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2015-10-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The gig: Jody Gerson is the chair and chief executive of Universal Music Publishing Group, representing songwriters such as Demi Lovato and Big Sean. UMPG is part of Santa Monica-headquartered Universal Music Group, the world's largest record company. Early days: Gerson, 54, grew up in... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2015-10-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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When sickly Bostonian Edward J. O'Brien put together the first "Best American Short Stories" anthology in 1915, short stories were considered junky pop culture. He was hoping that his project would elevate the short-story form. He had no idea he was launching a series that would last a century... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2015-10-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Deb Perelman, the writer behind the wildly popular food blog Smitten Kitchen, recently published her 1,000th recipe. She’s also written a cookbook that spent weeks on the New York Times best-seller list in 2012 and is still No. 1 on Amazon in the “gourmet cooking” category. Perelman’s success is... Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2015-10-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Jonathan Buckley has won the £15,000 BBC National Short Story Award for ‘Briar Road’. This evening (6th October) he was presented with the prize of £15,000 by this year’s Chair of Judges Allan Little at a ceremony held in the BBC’s Radio Theatre in London. The news was announced live on BBC... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2015-10-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Beginning October 19, Perseus anticipates that outlets will receive shipments within an average of two days once books are sent from Perseus’s Jackson, Tenn. distribution center. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2015-10-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Representatives from Hungary, a market focus at this year's Göteborg Book Fair, were openly criticized for the country's harsh treatment of refugees. The post Hungary Draws Fire at the Göteborg Book Fair appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2015-09-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Axel Springer's $343 million purchase of Business Insider set a new bar for digital publishing deals. Snark about BI's editorial content aside, the deal offers a few lessons for digital media: Size matters if you're going to be an advertising play. BI got big fast with clickable content that... Continue reading at Digiday
[ Digiday | 2015-09-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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German publisher, Axel Springer, agrees to buy a controlling stake in the US news website Business Insider for $343m (£226m). Continue reading at BBC News
[ BBC News | 2015-09-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Medium, the publishing platform hatched by Twitter co-founder Ev Williams, has raised $57 million in a round led by Andreessen Horowitz. It’s the three-year-old company’s second funding round, and people familiar with Medi ... Continue reading at Editor & Publisher
[ Editor & Publisher | 2015-09-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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One thing's for sure, Amazon's thinner new Fire HD tablets aren't iPad killers. Instead, they're being positioned as the ideal budget tablets for consuming video, ebooks and music. To that end, Amazon didn't even upgrade their hardware much -- bot... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2015-09-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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