Revenue

Publishers who spent much of the past year in search of the next Fifty Shades of Grey are now seeking to exploit another literary phenomenon: the British public's seemingly unfettered desire for nature writing. In the past couple of years the genre has moved towards the publishing world's centre ground thanks to several blockbuster books that have enjoyed critical and commercial success. Now it seems not a week goes by without another major new title hitting the shelves, backed by a major marketing campaign.

Pearson, which only got into the U.S. testing business about 15 years ago, has quickly become a giant in the rapidly expanding world of standardized testing. It has also become a target for critics unhappy with the growing presence of for-profit companies in public education. There have been questions about Pearson's spending as it has worked to expand its testing business. In 2013, the company's charitable arm agreed to pay $7.7 million in fines after New York's attorney general said the charity sent state education officials on overseas junkets

The recent news that Rakuten is acquiring OverDrive, as Gary Price reports on Infodocket, is, or is not, news. It's news if you didn't see this coming (shame on you!), but not news if you have been observing the industry of late. As I have noted on the Kitchen before, the environment is ripe for consolidation. We will see more of it in the months ahead. Sometimes consolidation is simply a matter of buying up market share, a tried and true strategy in mature markets, and sometimes there is a deeper component to it

Illustrated books publisher The Quarto Group Inc on Friday said its pretax profit more than doubled in 2014 despite lower revenue as the group boosted its margins through cost-cutting and an exceptional charge taken last year was not repeated.

Quarto said its pretax profit for 2014 was USD12.2 million, compared to USD5.8 million last year when the company was hit by a USD3.4 million exceptional restructuring charge. The profit was also pushed higher by lower administrative expenses and lower cost of sales, which slightly outpaced a fall in revenue.

As the date of the Book Business Live: Executive Summit on Digital Publishing draws closer, we are excited to confirm an impressive roster of speakers. Executives from Cengage, McGraw-Hill Education, The Perseus Books Group, Rodale Books, and more will join Book Business on March 31^st at The Union League in New York City.

Three announcements made by three publishing businesses over the past week show how companies that have been at the coalface of traditional publishing for sometime are looking at remodelling themselves.

First up was Canongate, the independent publisher run by the charismatic and well-connected Jamie Byng, which announced that it was to spin-off its fledging events business Letters Live into a separate company, jointly owned by Canongate and Benedict Cumberbatch's production business SunnyMarch.

Papercutz' lucrative graphic novel license with the Lego Group is coming to an end, with publishing rival Little, Brown announcing an agreement to begin releasing new children's graphic novels based on several of the same properties beginning in late 2015.

"We have until the end of this year on Ninjago and Bionicle, and mid-year 2016 on Chima," Papercutz Publisher Terry Nantier told ICv2.

Papercutz Lego Ninjago line has been successful, selling over 2 million copies from 2011 to March 2014, numbers it released before launching the Lego Legends of Chima graphic novel line

Indiana appears ready to ditch the company that creates ISTEP after years of testing problems, but the cost of delivering Indiana's state tests could go way up if it does.

British-owned Pearson, another giant testing company, won the state's bid for a $38 million two-year contract to give the ISTEP test starting next spring over CTB-McGraw Hill, according to awards released today by the Indiana Department of Administration. California-based CTB-McGraw Hill has created ISTEP since the test's inception in 2009. The company had a four-year, $95 million contract to create ISTEP that expired last year.

Many academic authors by now have heard the phrase "predatory publishers." It's usually associated with a list of fraudulent  pseudo-publishing operations maintained by Jeffrey Beall, whose crusade to name and shame these shady opportunists has made it to The New York Times. What worries me far more than these fairly obvious scams are the emerging business practices being used by highly profitable publishers with long and distinguished pedigrees that are treating open access as a new revenue stream that can be both open and closed - earning money through subscriptions and author fees.

Book Business is excited to announce the launch of the daily Book Business Insightnewsletter, which will replace Publishing Business Today (PBT). Where PBT covered broad publishing news in the book and magazine segments, Insight will be devoted to delivering information that is highly relevant to book publishers. Click here if you're not already a subscriber.