HarperCollins

HarperCollins Publishers has put a 277,000-square-foot distribution center up for sale about a year after buying it as part of its purchase of Nashville-based religious publisher Thomas Nelson. The distribution center is expected to be shut down by next spring, idling 102 employees. An additional 248 employees with HarperCollins Christian Publishing, which includes Thomas Nelson, will stay at that unit's headquarters in an adjacent building. Last fall, HarperCollins announced plans to close its last two U.S. distribution centers, including the one at 565 Royal Parkway in Nashville,

On July 31, HarperCollins Christian Publishing (HCCP) turns one year old. According to Ted Olsen of Christianity Today, a leading voice of the evangelical movement, HCCP controls 50 percent of the Christian publishing market, making it by far the largest player in the segment. Led by President and CEO Mark Schoenwald (above), the first year of HCCP has been a "mission" of sorts, one of uniting the two similar but distinct missionary directives of its constituent parts, Zondervan and Thomas Nelson. As Schoenwald and his team have transformed the organization, their mantra has been "One + One is greater than Two."

After 18 years, best-selling crime novelist Patricia Cornwell is leaving Penguin for HarperCollins, making her the first major writer to jump ship since Penguin and Random House merged last month. Cornwell, best known for her crime novels based on medical examiner Kay Scarpetta, signed on for an eight figure, two-book deal with the HarperCollins' William Morris imprint. Penguin's Putnam imprint will release Dust, the 21st Scarpetta book in November, and William Morris will print the following one in the fall of 2014. 

The US Department of Justice has called for further and extended penalties for Apple in the wake of its successful case against the company for e-book price-fixing, indicating that it believes publishers "may be positioning themselves to pick things back up where they left off as soon as their two-year clocks run".

Watching C-Span’s Book TV the weekend of July 5, I picked up their May 30 interview with Scott Turow, President of the Author’s Guild. While he was pitching his forthcoming book, Identical, Peter Slen led him to revisit his NY Times OP Ed piece, “The Slow Death of the American Author.” Peter Slen, by the way, in the tradition of C-Span’s Brian Lamb, has got to be one of the smartest and most resourceful TV interviewers in the book world.

English-language books from US Trade sector publishers continue to flourish worldwide, especially in Europe and Asia and in expanding online international retail sales channels, according to the second annual Association of American Publishers (AAP) Export Sales Report being released today. The report also shows particular worldwide growth in US-published, English-language fiction for Adults and Young Adults.

The report examines US Trade sector (publishers of fiction and non-fiction) 2012 net sales revenue from international markets and includes data from all major consumer publishing houses.

HarperCollins Christian Publishing won a total of nine 2013 Christian Retailing's Best Awards at this year's annual International Christian Retailing Sales conference in St. Louis, Mo. 

In the Bible category, the Company was honored with three of the four awards: "Story for Children Bible" in the NIrV translation (Zondervan) in Children's; "NIV Women's Devotional Bible" (Zondervan) in Devotional/Study; and "Extreme Teen Study Bible" (Thomas Nelson) in Teen.

"It is an honor to have three Bibles published by Zondervan and Thomas Nelson receive Christian Retailing's Best Awards," said Chip Brown, senior vice president and publisher for the Bible team. "We strive to provide resources that inspire Christians everywhere and assist them in their daily study of God's Word. It is truly humbling to have so many resources recognized by our industry."

One of the biggest success stories in U.S. publishing in recent years has been the continued growth of digital book publishing. Last year, total revenue for e-book sales in the United States reached $3.04 billion, a 44.2% increase on 2011′s numbers and a figure all the more impressive when you realize that growth is additive to the print publishing industry. Even more surprising, publishers have focused much of their attention on genres like sci-fi, fantasy, mystery and romance fiction – markets that have traditionally lagged behind “literary fiction” in terms of sales.

Poor old big-name publishers. Stick to your guns by insisting on the value of your traditional, print-centric gatekeeping, and you'll be shunted straight to the top of the endangered species list. Pander to the plebs by putting a fancy cover on fan fiction, and you'll be decried as an opportunist whore who has swapped literary values for trending hashtags. It's enough to make you run screaming out of your Bloomsbury redbrick and set up in a cheap little Hackney warehouse with a bunch of fixie-riding digital natives who can …

Pearson is to close its New Zealand educational business at the end of August, while HarperCollins has also announced it will shutter its distribution operations in the country. The separate...