Saturday, August 10, 2013

Trade news from Publishers Lunch


Catherine Onder will join Bloomsbury Children's on September 3 as editorial director, reporting to publishing director Cindy Loh. Most recently she was senior editor at Disney Hyperion. Loh says in the announcement: "Cat’s publishing vision perfectly dovetails with Bloomsbury's plans for the future. We have three ambitious new lines launching next year and a fresh, new focus. I can’t wait for Cat to lead our team and grow the list in even more exciting directions."

The latest "cover reveal" is for Sue Monk Kidd's January 7, 2014 release, THE INVENTION OF WINGS.

The 14-title longlist for the FT/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year award was released. The six-title shortlist will be announced next month.

Mystery author Barbara Mertz, who wrote over 35 books as Elizabeth Peters and 29 suspense novels as Barbara Michaels, died yesterday at home in Frederick, MD. She was 85.


Earlier this week Canada's dominant bookseller Indigo reported a 8.1 percent decrease in sales of C$171.5 million for the fiscal first quarter ending June 29, with a net loss of C$15 million (far greater than the $5.5 million loss for the same period a year ago.) Indigo attributed the revenue drop to "declining book and eReader sales," as compared to the last year's "strong sales of the Fifty Shades and Hunger Games trilogies." They also closed 8 stores in the intervening year.
Superstore sales comps were down 7.1 percent, small-format store comps fell 13.1 percent, and even online sales remained flat for the quarter, at $17.8 million. EBITDA remained negative compared to a year ago, with losses widening to $14.4 million (compared to a loss of $2.3 million in the first quarter last year.) Their nonbook merchandise continues to expand thanks to "double-digit growth" in lifestyle, paper and toy sales, while the revenue-sharing agreement Indigo has with Kobo again increased "due to the growth in digital reading."

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