Yang Succeeds Chi at RH Asia
Y.S. Chi will step down as chairman of Random House Asia May 31, to be succeeded by Eric Yang, the head of a prominent literary agency in Seoul. Chi has directed RH Asia for three and a half years and drove the formation of Random House Kodansha in Japan and Random House JoongAng in Korea. Yang will now oversee those operations and lead Random's exploration of opportunities in China.
Lockhart New Zondervan Prez
Doug Lockhart has been promoted to president of Zondervan, succeeding Bruce Ryskamp, who remains CEO. Lockhart joined Zondervan, HarperCollins's religion subsidiary, in 2002 and most recently served as executive v-p of marketing. He will oversee Zondervan's day-to-day activities, while Ryskamp will focus on strategic initiatives.
Sales Changes At Chronicle
With the departure of Chronicle Book's Chris Navratil, executive director of sales and marketing, the company is restructuring its sales and marketing. Under its new structure, consultant Abby Hoffman will rejoin Chronicle as v-p of sales and marketing, and Tyrrell Mahoney has been promoted to executive director of sales.
Books Soft at Hastings
The sale of books in Hastings stores open at least one year fell 3.4% in the first quarter ended April 30. The company attributed the decline to a lack of hot new titles in the recent quarter, especially compared to strong-selling political and diet books that debuted in the comparable quarter in 2004. Sales for the entire company rose 1.7%, to $129.1 million, and earnings fell to $754,000 from $2 million.
Second Big Earth Buy
Big Earth Publishing has followed up its April purchase of Johnson Books with an agreement to acquire Intrigue Press. A division of Corvus Publishing, Intrigue publishes about 10 mystery and suspense books annually and has a backlist of 55 titles. The deal is expected to close May 31, at which time Intrigue's operations will be taken over by Johnson, although Consortium will continue to serve as Intrigue's distributor. Authors include M.K. Preston, Steve Brewer, Robert Patrick and Connie Shelton.
Searles to Blog BEA for 'PW'
Novelist John Searles, author of the forthcoming novel Strange but True (Harper Perennial, June 14), will write a blog for PW, reporting on BookExpo from the Javits Center show floor (and from various parties) begin- ning June 2. He'll be joined by a number of guest bloggers.
Lectorum to Distribute Mexico's FCE
Lectorum Publications, Scholastic's Spanish-language distribution unit, has reached an exclusive agreement to distribute children's and young adult titles from Fondo de Cultural Economica, one of Mexico's largest publishers, in the U.S.
Holtzbrinck To Distribute NBM's Papercutz
Graphic novel publisher NBM has reached an agreement with Holtzbrinck Publishers to distribute its Papercutz line of graphic novels aimed at teens and tweens, beginning in October. The Papercutz line publishes pocket-size original graphic novels based on the Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys and Zorro series.
New Group To Promote DOI
A new organization called the Consortium for Business Information Linking, focused on advancing the use of the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) among business information publishers, is being organized at the Special Libraries Association meeting June 6 in Toronto. David Sidman, president of Content Directions, the U.S. firm that registers DOIs and manages the DOI infrastructure, said the organization (www.cbil.info) was initiated in the U.K. and will be based in New York City.
Earnings Rise At EDC
The Educational Development Corp., distributor of Usborne children's books, reported net revenues of $31.6 million for the fiscal year ended February 28, 2005, an increase over the $31.1 million reported for the same period last year. Net earnings for the most recent period were $2.4 million ($0.62 earnings per share), compared with $2.3 million ($0.60 earnings per share) in net earnings the previous year. The company plans to pay a $0.15 per share annual dividend, a 25% increase over last year.
