Latest News from The Boookseller

Sales rise, but Foyles dips into loss Foyles reported a loss last year due to the closure of its Westfield White City branch and the move of its new flagship store, although sales were up 2.2%. Results for the year to 30th June 2014 show that the six-shop mini-chain slipped into a loss of £600,000, up from a profit of £100,000 in 2013. But the company attributed the deficit to “significant exceptional write-offs in respect of the anticipated closure in the following year of Westfield White City, costing £0.4m, and the move of the flagship store” which opened in June 2014.

Hammicks closes Fleet Street store Hammicks Legal Information Services has closed its one remaining bricks and mortar shop on London's Fleet Street, described on its website as the largest legal bookshop in the world. The shop, part of the John Smith and Son Group, finished trading at 1pm on Friday (13th February). However Hammicks - which specialises in legal books and journals - will continue to maintain a physical presence, placing concessions in John Smiths stores, and seeking a new London location. It will also continue trading through its website and direct order businesses.

Chapman: S&S UK's 'challenging' year S&S UK has seen a "challenging year" which has not been helped by a number of staffing changes, its c.e.o Ian Chapman has told The Bookseller.  The c.e.o and publisher of S&S UK and International was speaking following the release of S&S's global results by its parent company CBS on Friday (13th February), which revealed a sales drop of 3.8% to $778m in the 12 months to the end of December 2014 and a decline of 5.6% in operating profit to $101m.

DCMS 'investigating' Lincolnshire library cuts The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is investigating whether Lincolnshire County Council is providing a “comprehensive and efficient” library service. The investigation – a preliminary step to enable the Culture Secretary Sajid Javid to decide whether a local inquiry is necessary - follows a complaint by Maurice Nauta, the retired chief librarian of the county's library service, who wrote to the DCMS on behalf of the Save Lincolnshire Libraries’ campaign, objecting to the proposed changes to Lincolnshire’s public library provision.

Academic Book Week set for 2016 A week-long showcase of academic book excellence, Academic Book Week, is to run in the UK in November 2016.  The event, scheduled for 9th-16th November, is being co-ordinated as part of the Academic Book of the Future Project and has the backing of the Booksellers Association and the Publishers Association.

Publishers encouraged by Waterstones revival Waterstones has passionate booksellers who are “handselling again”, breaking début novelists and “building careers”, according to publishers.  Chief executives and sales directors of publishing houses have spoken to The Bookseller following the release of the chain retailer’s annual results (to April 2014), which showed it had slashed its losses to £3.8m, from £12.5m a year earlier. The company was on track for profitability by the end of April 2015, according to its m.d. James Daunt.

New Michael Moorcock series to Gollancz Gollancz has acquired three new novels from fantasy writer Michael Moorcock, the author’s first full novels in almost 10 years. Commissioning editor Marcus Gipps acquired the rights to the three books, a series beginning with The Whispering Swarm, from Caspian Dennis at Abner Stein on behalf of Howard Morhaim of the Morhaim Literary Agency.

Bookshops contend for Best Small Shop award Four bookshops have made the shortlist for the Best Small Shops Competition.  Booka bookshop in Oswestry, Main Street Trading Company in St Boswells, the Book Nook in Hove and Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights in Bath (pictured) have all made the shortlist of the best 20 small shops in the UK.  The award is run by the All Party Parliamentary Small Shops Group and administered by the Independent Retailers Confederation.

Brahmachari to be Booktrust writer-in-residence Charity Booktrust has appointed Sita Brahmachari as its new online writer-in-residence. Brahmachari will take over from Philip Ardagh and her first blog post will appear on the Booktrust website next Monday 23rd February. Over the course of her six-month residency Brahmachari will write weekly articles about the issues facing the children’s publishing industry.

Row over Manchester library stock Ten of thousands of books may have been destroyed by Manchester Central Library, campaigners have claimed. However a Manchester council representative has asserted that only those "duplicated, outdated or otherwise obsolete" have been got rid of.

Phillips made Egmont rights director Egmont Publishing UK has appointed Tracy Phillips to the role of rights director. Phillips, who is currently group rights director at Simon & Schuster, will grow Egmont’s rights and co-edition business across fiction, picture books, non-fiction and licensing, and will report to m.d. of books Cally Poplak. “I’m thrilled to be joining the team at Egmont and at such an exciting time in children’s publishing,” said Phillips. “It feels like I am coming home as my first job in publishing was selling rights to the Egmont list when it was Reed Children's Books.”

Self-published Chambers on Kitschies shortlist A novel self-published following a Kickstarter campaign is competing against books from Jonathan Cape and Blackfriars in the best debut novel category at the Kitschies. The Kitschies, which covers novels containing elements of the speculative and fantastic, honours writing in four categories.