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More Reorganzing as Gibbs Smith Works to Rebound
Gibbs Smith Publishing, which celebrated its 40th anniversary last year and is regarded as one of the most distinctive lifestyle publishers in the U.S., is reorganizing the company in order to meet the financial challenges it has faced since 2008. “As every publisher knows, the world changed in October 2008,” said Gibbs Smith CEO Christopher Robbins. “Until that time our average unit sales were increasing every year, but we were forced to reduce out staff by 39% in February 2009 in order to preserve our cash flow.”
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What's Amazon Up To?
Easily the most speculated about issue at BEA last week was just how fast and how far Amazon will push into publishing now that it has named Larry Kirshbaum to head its New York publishing arm. Amazon's official position is that it will continue to open new imprints in more genres as it already has in romance (Montlake Romance) and mysteries and thrillers (Thomas & Mercer).
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News Briefs: Week of 5/30/2011
Borders Lost $132 Million in April and more.
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Regnery Forms History Imprint
This fall Regnery Publishing wll launch a new history imprint aimed at giving more attention to subjects and events that have tended to be overlooked, according to Alex Novak, Regnery associate publisher who is overseeing the imprint. The launch list includes Founding Rivals: Madison vs. Monroe and the Election That Created the Bill of Rights and Changed a Nation. In addition to history titles, the imprint will publish new history, biography, and military history titles, mostly as hardcovers and e-books.
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Black Classic Press Acquires Howard University Press backlist; Plans New Editions
After 39 years of distinguished scholarly publishing focused on African American life and history around the world, the Howard University Press is closing its doors. The university has reached an agreement with Baltimore-based Black Classic Press, an African American independent press and print-on-demand vendor, to acquire a selection of the press’s backlist of more than 175 scholarly titles, with plans to reissue most of them in new editions under BCP’s new line of Howard University Classic Editions.
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Kirshbaum Named Publisher of Amazon Publishing Group
Amazon has named former Time Warner Book Group CEO and current agent Larry Kirshbaum v-p and publishing for Amazon Publishing’s New York office. The appointment is effective immediately, although Kirshbaum’s first official day is not until July 5. Kirshbaum’s appointment ends an extensive search by the e-tailer to find a publishing veteran to head a New York office, as PW first reported two weeks ago.
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Publication Studio: A Nonfranchise Franchise
In a borrowed storefront in Portland, Ore., Matthew Stadler, author and Clear Cut Press cofounder, and a young writer named Patricia No used an inexpensive, perfect-binding machine to launch Publication Studio in 2009. Their idea: to make books they loved and to host community events that cultivated the social life of those books. Two years later, "sibling" Publication Studios have sprung up in Berkeley, Calif.; Vancouver, B.C.; Minneapolis, Toronto, and, earlier this month, Los Angeles—run by what Stadler calls like-minded "fellow travelers" on the independent publishing trail. "I think of it as the opposite of franchising," said Stadler.
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News Briefs: Week of 5/23/2011
RosettaBooks Debuts Mayo Clinic E-books and More.
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PoliPoint Sells More Titles
Three days after announcing the sale of seven titles to Berrett-Koehler Publishers, PoliPoint Press in Sausalito, Calif. has reached an agreement with Paradigm Publishers to sell an additional 13 backlist titles to the Colorado-based press effective May 28, 2011. "Whether or not we can still exist depends on the revenue these sales realize," said PoliPoint's publisher, Scott Jordan.
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S&S to Open India Division
As part of a global expansion, Simon & Schuster is opening a new division in New Delhi. Simon & Schuster India will be overseen by Ian Chapman, who is managing director and chief executive of Simon & Schuster UK.
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Amazon Starts Mystery Imprint Thomas & Mercer
After announcing it would publish romance novels through a new imprint called Montlake, Amazon has unveiled its next genre imprint, Thomas & Mercer, which is focused on mysteries and thrillers. Thomas & Mercer will release its first four titles in Fall 2011.
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Ancient Mysteries Hot for Inner Traditions
Inner Traditions has enjoyed solid sales increases in its ancient mystery titles for a few years and it thinks it has another hit in the genre with its just-released Black Genesis: The Prehistoric Origins of Ancient Egypt. With a first printing of 10,000, Black Genesis sold 1,200 copies through Amazon in its first three weeks on sale.
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Arcadia Books to Open in Wisconsin
James Bohnen, the director of Wisconsin’s American Players Theatre, one of the country’s largest outdoor theaters, is opening an independent bookstore in downtown Spring Green, near Madison, on May 20. Arcadia Books will be a full-service general bookstore, carrying 8,000-10,000 titles, with an emphasis on literature, drama, poetry, history, cookbooks, and children’s books.
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PoliPoint Sells Seven Titles to Berrett-Koehler
PoliPoint Press is selling seven backlist titles to Berrett-Koehler Publishers of San Francisco for an undisclosed sum in a deal to be completed May 28. According to PoliPoint publisher Scott Jordan, BK has “the right kinds of marketing muscle and vertically integrated distribution to reach new audiences for these fantastic titles.” Although the seven titles will be changing hands they will continue to be distributed through Ingram Publisher Services, the distributor for both PoliPoint and BK.
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AARP Teams with Wiley
After a search to find a new home for their book publishing arm, nationwide nonprofit organization AARP announced today that they are teaming up with John Wiley & Sons to create AARP-branded titles targeted at Americans age 50 and older. Wiley will be releasing the first of AARP Books’ new titles in early 2012, which will be available in both print and e-book formats. Cathy Ventura-Merkel, senior v-p of AARP Publications, says they are “thrilled to team up with Wiley and eager to relaunch the AARP Books Program.”
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Dinotopia's Gurney Draws on Blog for Newest Hit
James Gurney's series of illustrated fantasy adventure stories, beginning with 1992's Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time, produced a generation raised on Gurney's highly realistic paintings of an entirely unreal subject: namely, a world in which intelligent dinosaurs and humans coexist discovered by a Victorian scientist and his son.
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News Briefs: Week of 5/16/11
HC, Donnelley In Deal and More.
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Sticking with Books
As publishers worry about the shrinking number of physical bookstores, Levy Home Entertainment is making the case that mass merchants will be a viable alternative not only to showcase books but to sell them as well. In a presentation at the Book Industry Study Group's May 5 "Making Information Pay" conference as well as at its own meetings with publishers, Levy argues that by 2015 mass merchants' share of a shrinking print retail book pie will slightly increase from 2010 while the share of units sold through bookstores loses half its market share to online bookstores.
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From China to Chicago
River North Editions may have just launched in March, but IPG's rebranded distribution program for scholarly titles published by approximately a dozen international presses is already making a big splash, as is one of its clients, a four-year-old company located far from River North's offices in Chicago.
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