May Store Sales Down
Bookstore sales fell 3.0% in May, to $1.11 billion, according to preliminary estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. For the first five months of 2009, store sales were off 3.8%, to $6.31 billion. For the entire retail sector, sales fell 11.5% in May and 10.2% for the five-month period.
MHE Reorg Cuts 340
McGraw-Hill Education is reorganizing its elhi operations in a move that will create four specialized “Learning Solution Centers.” The new organization will combine MHE's core basal publishing operations with its supplementary operation, and as a result the company is eliminating 340 positions. Last year, MHE cut a total of 445 jobs in different restructurings.
Morgan James E-books on Scribd
Independent publisher Morgan James is making its titles available on Scribd.com. Fourteen of the house's bestsellers are currently for sale on the site, and its entire 500-title backlist will eventually be there as well. The publisher is not allowing users to print or copy any titles; e-books are available as PDFs only.
Follow-up to Quirk's 'P&P&Z'
With more than 600,000 copies in print of its Jane Austen mashup, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Quirk Books announced that Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters will be the next entry in its Quirk Classics series. The book, being written by Ben H. Winters, will be published September 15. The idea to blend aquatic baddies with Austen's romance seemed, according to editor Jason Rekulak, an ideal way to refresh the mashup craze Quirk started. The book will have a 200,000-copy first printing.
Chinese E-reader Ready
Chinese IT giant the Founder Group showed off its $200 Kindle-like e-reader for the Japanese and Chinese market earlier this month at Tokyo's Digital Publishing Fair. Founder expects the device to be commercially launched initially at the end of the year in China. The Chinese e-reader has a six-inch, black and white e-ink screen plus a SIM card from which contents can be directly downloaded to the terminal, while its cellular modem means wireless downloads will not, unlike the Kindle, be restricted to only one network. The device is also configured to display double-byte characters—essential for reading scripts in Japanese, Chinese and Korean characters.
King Graphic Novel Heads to Bookstores
Marvel Comics and DoubledayBroadway have reached an agreement to allow The Stand: Captain Trips, the hardcover graphic novel adaptation of Stephen King's The Stand, to be distributed in the general bookstore market beginning in January 2010. The book was originally released exclusively through comics shops in March after Marvel acknowledged that it did not have permission from the prose book's original publisher, Doubleday, to distribute it to general bookstores.
Ollie North Imprint Debuts
One of the authors at the International Christian Retail Show last week was U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint (R—S.C.), who signed copies of Saving Freedom. The title marked the debut title of Fidelis Books—an imprint of B&H Publishing Group— which is being led by retired Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North, now an author and Fox News Channel host. Fidelis will publish both fiction and nonfiction. While Fidelis books will appeal to a Christian market, they are also aimed outside that market at military affairs, politics and current affairs readers.
Though Down, Courier Sees Hope
Total sales fell 11.8% in the nine-month period ended June 27 at Courier Corp., and dropped 16.3% drop in the third quarter. Still, CEO James Conway said he was cautiously optimistic that the worst was behind the printer and publisher, and predicted that the fourth quarter will be the best of the fiscal year.
In the third quarter, revenue in the book manufacturing segment fell 16.6%, to $52.7 million. Sales were down in all three segments. For the nine months, revenue in the segment was off 7.6%, to $153.5 million. Revenue in the publishing segment declined 15.7%, to $11.3 million in the quarter. The biggest drop, 38%, came at Creative Homeowner. Sales at Dover were off 8%, while sales at REA were flat. For the nine months, sales were down 23.1%.
