More Cuts at Crown
Following a few job cuts at its Clarkson Potter imprint earlier this month, Crown Publishing confirmed that it eliminated "a small number of positions"—reported to be five—in its WaterBrook Multnomah religious book imprint. "We see these changes as aligning our business with our ongoing strategy here," a spokesperson said.

May Store Sales Slip
Bookstore sales fell for the second consecutive month in May, with revenue in the month down 2.6%, to $1.09 billion, according to estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. Bookstore sales for the first five months of 2010 were down 0.4%, to $6.33 billion. Sales for the entire retail segment rose 8.5% in May and 6.8% for the first five months of 2010.

Borders Sells Paperchase
Borders has reached an agreement with the U.K. private equity firm Primary Capital Limited to sell Paperchase for $31 million. Borders acquired a majority stake in the stationery chain in 2004 for $24.1 million, and all of its bookstores contain Paperchase sections. The company will use the proceeds to repay debt.

Lotz Named Walker Group MD
Karen Lotz, president and publisher of Candlewick Press, has been named joint group managing director for parent company Walker Group and will become sole managing director in July 2011. In addition to Candlewick, Walker includes Walker Books UK and Walker Books Australia. Until next July, Lotz will share the managing director role with David Heatherwick, who will continue as finance director when Lotz takes over on her own. Lotz will continue to work from Candlewick's Somerville, Mass., headquarters and will also remain head of Candlewick.

AudioGo Buys BBC Audiobooks
AudioGo Ltd., a U.K. media company, has bought an 85% stake in BBC Audiobooks in a sale that includes BBC Audio's U.S. operation, BBC Audiobooks America, which will remain in North Kingston, R.I. Editorial director Jeff Golick will continue to be located in New York. BBC Audiobooks America, which is now known as
AudioGo, will continue to publish predominantly BBC-created content under the BBC Audio imprint and will continue to operate its library imprints including Sound Library.

B&N, Blackboard Ink Deal
Barnes & Noble announced a partnership with online teaching platform Blackboard that will allow students to purchase and download B&N e-content through the Blackboard platform. The new partnership will integrate the Blackboard platform with NookStudy, a forthcoming software application from B&N that will let students buy, aggregate, and customize discounted digital textbook content on their Macs or PCs (NookStudy does not require the Nook reading device). The integrated platform will be called Blackboard Building Block and will be available later this year.

Thurber to Head ‘L.A. Times Book Review'
Jon Thurber has been named book review editor of the Los Angeles Times. He will take over from David Ulin, who is now a book critic for the paper. Thurber will also manage the books page on LATimes.com and the Jacket Copy blog.

Karp Hires Loehnen, Ferrari-Adler
Ben Loehnen and Jofie Ferrari-Adler have been named senior editors at Simon & Schuster's adult trade imprint, hired by newly installed
executive Jonathan Karp.

The two will start on July 26. Loehnen arrives from HarperCollins, while Ferrari-Adler was most
recently an editor at Grove/Atlantic.