In June, John Sargent, CEO of Macmillan, sent a memo to staff outlining plans to change their leadership structure. “It is clear that we have to change who occupies the seats at the table when the important decisions are being made.” They plan to create a new Trade Manage­ment committee with 13 members “who will meet regularly to decide on the key issues for Macmillan” and “focus on running the ...Read More

Dawn Frederick, owner of St. Paul MN-based agency Red Sofa Literary, is at the center of an ongoing controversy. On May 28, 2020, during protests following the death of George Floyd in the Twin Cities, Frederick tweeted, “The gas station at the END OF MY BLOCK is officially getting looted. Calling the police right now to let them know as someone will need to board up this place.” (Her Twitter ...Read More

Bundoran Press Publishing House has announced that it will cease operations by October 30, 2020. No new contracts will be signed, and all previously contracted books have been published. They will continue to sell books on their website and other platforms until that date. Authors and editors can request rights reversion at an earlier date; otherwise, all rights will revert at the end of October.

Hayden Trenholm spoke on behalf ...Read More

Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games sequel The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes sold about 270,000 hardcovers in its first week following a May 19, 2020 release, according to NPD Bookscan. Publisher Scholastic says 500,000 copies sold in all formats. That accounts for a good chunk of the 13.22 million print books sold that week, up from 12.52 million the week before.

Lethe Press has suspended their Transcendent series of year’s best ...Read More

What if you held a book fair, but nobody came? The annual Frankfurt Book Fair is still scheduled for October 2020 (albeit at a smaller than usual scale), but Bloomsbury, HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, Lagardere Publishing, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, and numerous smaller publishers have announced that they will not attend or exhibit, though many plan to take part in the fair’s virtual activities. Although Canada is the “guest of ...Read More

French company Vivendi has purchased 10.6% of stock in multimedia giant Lagardere (parent company of Hachette, and owner of the largest publisher in France). Vivendi owns France’s second-biggest publisher, Editis. Lagardere’s board is in a struggle with one of their major shareholders, hedge fund Amber Capital, which wants to replace current Lagardere directors and leadership as ‘‘a referendum on the management of the last seventeen years.’’ Vivendi chairman Vincent Bollore ...Read More

According to NPD Bookscan, print sales for the week ending May 2, 2020 were strong, and the closest to a ‘‘normal’’ week since widespread shelter-in-place orders went into effect across the US in March and April: 12.24 million books sold, up from 11.04 million the prior week. Sales for the same week in 2019 were only 11.58 million.

Adult sales in particular rebounded, selling 7.8 million books, over 6.26 million ...Read More

Penguin Classics plans to “celebrate science fiction as the essential genre of modern times” with a new series of science fiction classics. Titles launching in August include Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, Flatland by Edwin Abbott, and Ten Thousand Light-years from Home by James Tiptree, Jr. Penguin also plans to publish well-known international science fiction translated into English, such as The Hair Carpet Weavers by Andreas Eschbach (Doryl Jensen, translator) ...Read More

Jonathan Karp has been named president and CEO of Simon & Schuster, taking over after former president Carolyn Reidy died unexpectedly of a heart attack on May 12. He was promoted from president of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing, where he oversaw key books like What Happened by Hillary Clinton, Fear by Bob Woodward, and Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. He plans to “continue to build on the strong foundation ...Read More

J.K. Rowling will publish a new children’s book, The Ickabog, with free chapters appearing online every weekday in 34 installments from May 26 – July 10, 2020.

The complete version will be published in November 2020 by Scholastic in the US and Little, Brown in the UK, with all royalties being donated to “help groups who’ve been particularly impacted by the pandemic.”

Rowling is holding an illustration competition for ...Read More

Numerous authors, editors, and pub­lishers are offering free material for readers stuck in isolation, including several of genre interest.

J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, Audible, Overdrive, Pottermore, and Scholastic launched the “Harry Potter at Home” initiative, making the ebook and audiobook of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone free, and issuing a general read-aloud license for teachers so they can read from the book on video. There are also special activities for ...Read More

LSC Communications, the largest book printer in the US, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in April. The company plans to continue operations “in the ordinary course” and says it will “pay vendors in full under customary terms for all goods and services received on or after the filing date.” They are negotiating with lenders to restructure financially, but are required to “conduct a marketing process for the sale of ...Read More

On April 1, 2020 Bertelsmann completed its $675 million purchase of the last 25% of Penguin Random House owned by Pearson. Ber­telsmann plans to simplify the board structure, and Pearson’s two seats on the board are expected to be replaced. PRH US CEO Madeline McIntosh wrote to staff with some rare good news: regular employees not otherwise eligible for bonuses will receive $856 following strong 2019 financial results.

HarperCollins UK ...Read More

Jason Sizemore has announced that Apex magazine will relaunch in January 2021, on “a new bi-monthly publication schedule with one issue every two months for a total of six issues a year. The amount of yearly fiction published will remain the same as before, but this will allow for a more manageable production schedule of the zine.” He plans to run a subscription drive and a Kickstarter in July 2020 ...Read More

The Internet Archive announced a controversial “National Emergency Library” initiative, making nearly 1.5 million ebooks available for unrestricted borrowing through at least June 30, 2020, “to make a real difference for the nation and the world” during the pandemic. The Internet Archive is a private non-profit and has no legal right to give away these ebooks, most of which remain under copyright.

Authors may email <info@archive.org> with “National Emergency Library ...Read More

Bertelsmann, the parent company of Penguin Random House, has pledged to become climate neutral by 2030. They plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50% as compared to 2018, and to pay for offsets for the remainder. The company joins 800 other organizations worldwide as part of the Science Based Target Initiative. Chairman and CEO Thomas Rabe says, “Protecting the environ­ment is part of our corporate values.” They plan to ...Read More

Riverdale Avenue Books has acquired over 170 titles from SF erotica publisher Circlet Press, founded in 1992 by Cecilia Tan. The entire backlist will remain in print under the Circlet name. Tan says, “I’ve always been impressed with Riverdale Avenue’s rapid growth. I always said I would never sell until I found someone who could do the job better than me, and I found that person” in Riverdale founder Lori ...Read More