News

Sales rocket at Bloomsbury

Bloomsbury's outstanding year has given the company cash to buy up wide-ranging rights Liz Bury Harry Potter helped more than double... Read more

Film deals boosted

The forthcoming strike among Hollywood scriptwriters could boost UK publishers' chances of signing film deals that bear fruit, according to film industry experts.... Read more

Taylor&Francis beats stock market blues

Liz Bury Taylor&Francis' share price held up in a volatile market last week, when the company reported sales growth of 21% to... Read more

Booksellers urged to settle BDL accounts

Booksellers with debts outstanding to Bailey Distribution clients should pay their bills as normal, the publishers involved said this week. BDL went into liquidation... Read more

Flat market for US book sales

US consumer book sales remained flat in 2000, according to the latest Ipsos-NPD Book Trends survey. The survey of more than 12,000 households found... Read more

Gullane to animate David&Charles rights

Gullane Entertainment, the rights company that bought David&Charles' children's list in January, has said that it plans to develop selected D&C properties in TV... Read more

Hachette Livre narrows gap in output

Vivendi Universal Publishing, formerly Havas, reduced the number of new titles it published last year by 7% to 3,977, according to figures compiled by... Read more

Scholastic set to meet tough targets

Scholastic has said that it expects to meet its financial targets for the year, which have been upwardly revised twice following the enormous... Read more

WHS revamps children's section

W H Smith is revamping its children's sections in an attempt to boost children's book sales. The plans form part of an overall "environmental... Read more

Turnover and losses up at Borders

Losses at Borders' international stores, including its 14 Borders superstores and 31 UK-based Books Etc shops, escalated in its last financial year despite strong... Read more

Whitaker rival to PubEasy

A new Internet-based version of the Whitaker TeleOrdering service, which will rival PubEasy, is due to be launched at this year's London Book Fair.... Read more

Ottakar's bounces back

Ottakar's is to reinvigorate its shop opening programme in 2002 after it reported record operating profits of £3.5m for the year to end-March 2001.... Read more

Ghosh withdraws from Commonwealth Prize

The Commonwealth Foundation is standing by the Commonwealth Writers Prize despite criticism from Amitav Ghosh that it is a "memorialization" of the British Empire.... Read more

Trade to outlaw cover prices?

Net pricing was back on the agenda this week as booksellers called for greater control of their businesses and the removal of cover prices... Read more

Severance payments hit profits at HC

A star performance in trade publishing at UK-based HarperCollins Publishers drove sales up by 9% to £136m, with operating profit at £6.8m in the... Read more