The New York Times

Despite reports of increased earnings in nearly all of New Corp.’s properties, first quarter profits for its its book publishing unit declined. HarperCollins reported first quarter operating income of $55 million, a decrease of $15 million versus the same period a year ago that included strong sales of several key titles. The decline occured despite having 33 books on The New York Times bestseller list, including two books that reached the No. 1 spot. However, News Corp., as a whole, saw an $843 profit. Although Rupert Murdoch, chairman and CEO of News Corp. did not directly address HarperCollins, his comments showed an increased push for growth

Laura Waldron’s life is publishing. An author, a publisher and the marketing director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Press, Waldron offers a perspective on academic publishing that is uniquely well rounded. After an internship at Carnegie Mellon Press piqued her interest in publishing, she cut her teeth in sales and marketing for Princeton University Press and eventually represented 15 different university presses in the Mid-Atlantic territory as a trade sales representative. Today, she is closing in on her 10th anniversary with Penn Press and is the author of “Museums of Philadelphia: A Guide for Residents and Visitors,” which was published in 2004

Children’s books may be about finding the kid in all of us, but everyone in the children’s publishing business agrees that they have to grow up when it comes to taking advantage of profitable opportunities. The Internet is clearly not going away, yet with the need to protect children from cyberspace predators, publishers have to go through parents to get through to their young audiences. Once you reach them, however, it can’t hurt to be as multidimensional as possible. Jason Wells, publicity and marketing director for New York-based Harry N. Abrams Inc., says kids are looking for books that are not just self-contained

As part of an unprecedented promotional blitz, book advertising unlike any other was rolled out at the Richmond International Raceway last weekend. An advertisement for his new thriller “The Book of Fate”-- Meltzer’s sixth novel, released Sept. 5 -- appeared on Fitz-Bradshaw’s No.12 car during the Busch Series NASCAR race in Richmond, Va., on Sept. 8. The logo of the book and Meltzer’s name appeared on a circular sticker placed on the hood of the car. The New York Times best-selling author earned recognition as a writer of the acclaimed 2004 “Identity Crisis” superhero miniseries for Warner Brother’s DC Comics. In another groundbreaking attempt at

Somewhere between the ages of five and 11, kids stop reading. Well, maybe not all of them, but a recent study spearheaded by Scholastic Inc. shows that readership drops off as children age. The results show that 40 percent of kids between the ages of five and eight read for fun every day. Only 29 percent of nine- to 11-year-olds read as frequently, and that number declines sharply through age 17. Running Press Book Publishers thinks it knows why—and how to reverse this troublesome trend. Running Press, a Philadelphia-based imprint of The Perseus Books Group, will release a new young adult (YA) title, “Cathy’s

A news story about a partnership with a book publisher and a cosmetics company set off a blizzard of discussion last week around the industry about what the proper role between product placement deals in publishing and the readership it intends to target should be. In an article published in The New York Times on June 12, reporter Motoko Rich set off the debate about a new promotional relationship between Running Press, an imprint of Perseus Book Group, and Cover Girl, a division of Proctor and Gamble. The deal will see Cover Girl products being mentioned in the pages of the upcoming young adult novel,

Nine hundred billion dollars. That’s the estimated buying power expected of the Latino market within the next five years. Today its buying power is $500 billion here in the United States, and it is considered the 12th largest economy in the world. Information like this can be found on www.SpanishBookMarket.com—a Web site built and maintained by Mark Wesley of Rosa + Wesley, a development firm specializing in graphic design, book production and Spanish translation located in Wheaton, Ill. For those in any business, such numbers are enough to make one’s head spin. Yet some in book publishing are just now waking to this

Talk of globalization is everywhere, even at the doctor's office—or mine, at least. A simple visit to the doctor last night turned into a discussion about offshoring. The doc had heard about the new book by New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, called "The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). He was quite affected by the reports he had heard about it, and he is not alone. Despite the fact that almost every industry is individually trying to harness the impact that offshoring will have in the long run, and that offshoring has been a

LA VERGNE, Tenn. - Ingram Publisher Services Inc., a subsidiary of Ingram Book Group Inc. that specializes in providing distribution services to publishers, and O'Reilly Media Inc., an independent publisher of computer books, today announced they have entered into an exclusive distribution agreement to begin September 2005. Under the new agreement Ingram will be the exclusive distributor of O'Reilly books, handling retail customer service, order-entry and fulfillment. "Our partnership with Ingram allows us to give our current customers better, faster service," said Laura Baldwin, O'Reilly's CFO/COO. "Plus, they offer the services we need to expand our international business, as well as grow our account base in

It was a publisher's dream. Amy Fisher, the center of one of the largest media frenzies of the early '90s, had re-emerged in the media spotlight. After a decade of relative obscurity, the "Long Island Lolita," convicted of attempting to kill the wife of her older lover Joey Buttafuoco in August 1992, had served her seven-year sentence, started a family, become an award-winning journalist, and completed her first book, aptly titled "If I Knew Then …" The autobiography, which Fisher describes as "The truth behind the many sensationalized stories of who I was back then and some insight into who I am today," had