Disney Publishing Moving 175 to Westchester
Disney Publishing Worldwide will move 175 of the division’s 225 employees to a new office in White Plains, N.Y., a suburb north of Manhattan. The move involves staffers on both the magazine and book sides of the division; Hyperion’s adult group is not affected by the move. Twenty editorial employees from Disney Press, Hyperion Books for Children and Disney Editions will remain in Manhattan, as will about 30 people on the magazine side. The move, which is scheduled to get underway in October and be completed by December, is being done to “accommodate future growth” at the company, a spokesperson said.
Pearson to Buy eCollege
Approximately two weeks after it agreed to pay $950 million for pieces of Harcourt, Pearson has signed a deal to acquire the distance-learning company eCollege for $538 million. Pearson will then sell eCollege’s small Datamark enrollment business back to eCollege chairman Oakleigh Thorne for $41 million. Sales for eCollege, which provides online courses for students, were $52 million last year.
Publishing Sales Up at Marvel
Revenue in Marvel’s publishing segment rose 15% in the first quarter, to $27.5 million, and operating income jumped 29%, to $11.5 million. Unit sales were up to both the bookstore and direct markets. The final two issues in the highly popular Civil War series and the first issues in the Dark Tower series drove the sales increase.
New Name for Small Press Center
The Small Press Center is changing its name to the New York Center for Independent Publishing. The new name, along with new logo, will be officially unveiled May 31 at a cocktail reception, where publishing legend Barney Rossett will be honored. Along with the name change, the association will actively recruit new members.
New Goosebumps Series
Goosebumps author R.L. Stine has agreed to create a new 12-book series called Goosebumps Horrorland for Scholastic. The series will launch in April 2008 in a serial format with the first two titles.
Google Adds Book Data
Google has redesigned how its basic search engine works and added data on millions of new and older titles to Google Book Search. The new books have not been scanned and Google will not provide their full text, but readers will have access to basic information about the titles, such as author, pub date and reviews. Google’s search function now provides relevant results retrieved from across all of Google’s specialized search engines such as the Book Search function.
