Mar 29 2021
Learning technology company Houghton Mifflin Harcourt announced Monday that it has entered into a definitive agreement to divest HMH Books & Media, its consumer publishing business, to HarperCollins Publishers, a division of News Corp. (NWSA), for a cash purchase price of $349 million.
The divestiture enables Houghton Mifflin to focus singularly on K-12 education and accelerate growth momentum in digital sales, annual recurring revenue and free cash flow while paying down a significant portion of its debt.
Nov 17 2020
News Corp. (which owns HarperCollins) and Penguin Random House are the leading bidders for Simon & Schuster, according to the New York Times, which cited "three people familiar with the process." S&S was put up for sale in March by ViacomCBS, which characterized the publisher as "not a core asset."
At least one bid is for more than $1.7 billion--above ViacomCBS's minimum, which in March was estimated to be $1.2 billion. The Times wrote that "several financial firms" have dropped out of the bidding, and that final bids are due before Thanksgiving. A sale could be announced soon thereafter or "a deal may not materialize."
Jul 28 2020
The longlist (known as 'The Booker Dozen') for The 2020 Booker Prize is announced today.
The list was chosen from 162 novels published in the UK or Ireland between October 2019 and September 2020. The Booker Prize for Fiction is open to writers of any nationality, writing in English and published in the UK or Ireland.
The 13 novels and their UK publishers are:
Jun 01 2020
Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, John Wiley & Sons, and Penguin Random House filed a lawsuit on Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York charging the Internet Archive with copyright infringement. The suit asks the court to issue preliminary and permanent injunctions to prevent the IA’s scanning, public display, and distribution of literary works, which it makes available to the public through such businesses as its Open Library and National Emergency Library.
In its suit, the publishers make clear it is not suing the IA over “the occasional transmission of a title under appropriately limited circumstances, nor about anything permissioned or in the public domain,” but rather over the IA's “purposeful collection of truckloads of in-copyright books to scan, reproduce, and then distribute digital bootleg versions online.”
Mar 02 2020
Although the London Book Fair says it will take place next week, since Friday, the U.S. operations of Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, HarperCollins, Hachette and Ingram have indicated that they won't attend this year. In addition, some parts of Penguin Random House U.S. aren't attending; for others, the choice to attend is up to individual staff members. Among other companies dropping out of this year's fair are OverDrive and Amazon, and many other potential attendees from the U.S. are reconsidering travel plans, in part because of fears of being quarantined either in the U.K. or upon returning to the U.S.
Also over the weekend, Livre Paris, which was to be held March 20-23, has been cancelled, Livre Hebdo reported, a decision made after the French government on Saturday banned gatherings of more than 5,000 people in a confined space. The book fair is run by Reed Exhibitions, which runs the London Book Fair.
Update: With most of their large exhibitors choosing not to attend, Reed Exhibitions announced on March 3 that they had canceled the London Book Fair. The Leipzig Book Fair and Bologna Book Fair have been postponed.
Jan 08 2018
Intense demand for Fire & Fury has caught its publisher, Henry Holt, off guard as the Macmillan imprint scrambles to get copies into the marketplace.
Gauging a book's traction in the marketplace and setting its print run is, arguably, one of the trickiest aspects of the publishing process. And Holt, in this instance, underestimated demand significantly.
Although Holt is reordering as fast as it can the worry is that it may lose sales because of the current unavailability of the book. Competition is also coming. Two other books are due to publish next week--David Cay Johnston's It's Even Worse Than You Think (Simon & Schuster) and David Frum's Trumpocracy (HarperCollins)--are set to hit stores on January 16.
Mar 07 2017
HarperCollins is launching a global campaign to celebrate the company's 200th anniversary. Robert Thomson, CEO of parent company News Corp., says: "We're excited to celebrate this milestone anniversary and give thanks to the employees, authors, librarians, booksellers, and consumers who've been instrumental in helping HarperCollins become a part of the global literary culture over the last 200 years."
Mar 01 2016
Louise Rennison has died aged 63. She was the author of 10 young adult novels featuring Georgia Nicholson and a series of books about Georgia's younger cousin: The Misadventures of Tallulah Casey.
In a statement, HarperCollins said: "Nobody wrote for teenagers like she did, she understood them, their lives and their extraordinary and powerful friendships. In life, as in her writing, she brought joy and laughter. Our thoughts are with her family, friends and the readers whose lives she has touched for almost 20 years."
The House on Biscayne Bay
by Chanel Cleeton
As death stalks a gothic mansion in Miami, the lives of two women intertwine as the past and present collide.
The Flower Sisters
by Michelle Collins Anderson
From the new Fannie Flagg of the Ozarks, a richly-woven story of family, forgiveness, and reinvention.
The Funeral Cryer by Wenyan Lu
Debut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman's midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China.
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