Dream It, Write It! Lisa Shows Us How

Hi All,

While nearly every writer is fascinated by dreams, most haven’t considered the many ways dreams can help us with our fiction. Pen short-listed novelist, editor, and writing mentor shows us how in her upcoming Authorlink online class, Dream It, Write It. Don’t miss her! She’s the author of Keep It Simple Guide to Dreams, and The Mind of Your Story. Class begins March 21. Online sessions include personal guidance and are so easy to access.

Any questions, e-mail Doris at dbooth@authorlink.com.

Borders Books Makes Deeper Job Cuts

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (Authorlink News, Feb. 19, 2009)—Borders Group today announced that it has reduced its corporate workforce by another 136 positions, which were eliminated effective today. The majority of the jobs, which represent about 12% of the corporate workforce but less than 1% of the company’s total workforce, are based at the company’s headquarters in Ann Arbor. The workforce reduction was spread across virtually all business areas, including marketing, human resources, field management and corporate sales. The reductions were made at various ranks, ranging from entry level to middle management. Affected employees are being offered transition pay, severance and job placement assistance. Today’s changes follow the company’s announcement just over two weeks ago that several top-level corporate positions had been eliminated to reduce management layers and help drive expense reductions.

“While reducing payroll is never easy and we respect the impact it has on employees and their families, it is one of the necessary steps we must take along with other non-payroll expense reductions to help get this company back on track financially,” said Chief Executive Officer Ron Marshall. “In this time of transition, I greatly admire the tenacity and focus that employees at all levels here have shown as we drive to significantly reduce expenses and bring other key financial measures in line. We will continue to move forward with deliberate speed to make the changes required to get Borders back on firm financial footing.”

Headquartered in Ann Arbor, Mich., Borders Group, Inc. is a leading retailer of books, music and movies with approximately 27,000 employees. Through its subsidiaries, the company operates more than 1,000 stores primarily under the Borders(R) and Waldenbooks(R) brand names and offers online shopping through Borders.com.

Advanced Novel Writing

Hey, today is the last day to sign up for the ADVANCED NOVEL WRITING class, taught online by bestselling author Bonnie Hearn Hill, a terrific instructor published by major New York houses. She’ll give you one-on-one editing support. www.authorlink.com/classroom/classroom.php Class begins Feb. 21.

Random House Names Rubin Publisher at Large

Hi Everyone,

This is just in from Random House on the appointment of Stephen Rubin as publisher at large of Random House.


NEW YORK, NY(Authorlink News, February 12, 2009)—Stephen Rubin, who as President and Publisher of Random House’s former Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group published some of the most successful books of this era, including the titles of John Grisham and THE DA VINCI CODE by Dan Brown, has been appointed Executive Vice President and Publisher at Large for Random House by Markus Dohle, the trade-book publisher’s Chairman and CEO, to whom he reports.

Mr. Rubin will have several major responsibilities in his new position, which takes effect immediately. He will acquire books for Random House worldwide in collaboration with its publishers in North America and overseas. “All of our publishing groups will have the opportunity to work with Steve and to take advantage of his ability to bring in new authors and develop new publishing programs, while retaining the final decision about whether these projects are appropriate for their lists,” said Mr. Dohle. He also will serve as a new-business advocate with the publishers.

Mr. Rubin will act as an international Random House publishing liaison to maximize the opportunities and collaboration among U.S. publishers and our international divisions, especially between the U.S. and the U.K., in support of the company’s multilocal, highly independent publishing approach. Mr. Rubin will retain a role in acquiring future projects by several authors with whom he has had a long association, including John Grisham and Pat Conroy. In addition, he will be a key adviser to Mr. Dohle on a variety of strategic business opportunities and issues.

Mr. Dohle added, “For the past quarter century, Steve has been one of the most widely admired figures in trade book publishing. He helped shape the careers of authors and colleagues and his publishing programs influenced millions of readers. I know all of us can continue to benefit from Steve’s expertise and experience, as well as his personal relationships with authors and agents, and I believe he will be an invaluable resource for me and for the company as we continue to develop and grow our business worldwide.”

“I am delighted to continue with Markus and with my longstanding publishing colleagues doing what I love: working with our authors and helping to publish their books successfully. I am committed to using the freedom and flexibility of my new position to pursue a wide range of opportunities for us internationally, and to acquire some terrific books,” said Mr. Rubin.

Mr. Rubin has spent his entire twenty-five year career at Random House and its predecessor companies and divisions. For the past fifteen years, until December 2008, he was President and Publisher of Doubleday and later the Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group. Prior to that, he was Executive Editor and Publisher and Editor in Chief at Bantam Books in the eighties and the London-based former Chairman of the Transworld U.K. division.

Random House is the book-publishing division of Bertelsmann AG.

HarperCollins Shuts Down Collins Division

The publishing industry took another grim hit today when HarperCollins announced it has shut down the entire Collins division. Here is as much detail as we can find to this point. Stay tuned.



NEW YORK, NY (Authorlink News, February 10, 2009)--HarperCollins, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, has shut down its entire Collins division, which specialized in nonfiction books, and laid off more employees.

CEO Brian Murray told employees in a company memo Tuesday that “"Our industry is not immune to these market forces, and there is increasing pressure on us, along with our retail and wholesale partners, to adjust."

Among those laid off was Steve Ross, who joined Harpercollins in 2007 after serving at Crown Publishing where he worked on President Obama's best seller The Audacity of Hope. Also let go was Lisa Gallagher, publisher of the William Morrow division. Her division had produced such bestsellers as "The Graveyard Book," John Grogan's "Marlay & Me" and Dennis Lehane's "Mystic River."
Former Hyperion head Robert Miller and former Miramax Books president Jonathan Burnham, both will remain at Harper.
The company had flourished under CEO Jane Friedman, hired publishing stars like Ross away from other houses. But she was forced out last summer.
Earlier this month, HarperCollins reported that sales fell 25% from $406 million last year to only $305 million in the quarter ended December 31, 2008, the lowest results since February 2002. And book publishing income fell 65% to $23 million. Bestsellers on the New York Times list dropped from 92 titles a year ago to 50 titles this in 2008.

Part of the decline was attributed to the stronger dollar, which lowers the relative value of sales in the UK and Canada. Ten percent of the sales decline, or about $10 million, was due to the rising dollar, according to its SEC report, and contributed $2.64 million to the decline in profits. The bankruptcy by the U.K. distributor EUK also contributed to the earnings decline.
Apparently the Collins titles will be absorbed into Harper, but no statement has been issued just yet.

Amazon Unveils Slimmer, Faster Amazon Kindle 2

SEATTLE--(Authorlink News, February 9, 2009)--Amazon.com, Inc. today introduced its new reading device, Amazon Kindle 2, to a crowd of publishing dignitaries in New York’s Morgan library. The new reading device offers wireless delivery of content in a new slim design with longer battery life, faster page turns, over seven times more storage, sharper images, and a new read-to-me feature.

Kindle 2 features a high-resolution 6-inch electronic paper display that looks and reads like real paper, which lets users read for hours without the eyestrain caused by reading on a backlit display. More than 230,000 books are now available in the Kindle Store, including 103 of 110 current New York Times Best Sellers and New Releases, which typically sell for $9.99. Top U.S. and international magazines and newspapers plus more than 1,200 different blogs are accessible on the device, which still sells at a pricey $359. The unit is available at http://amazon.com/kindle2 and will ship February 24.

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos told the crowd: “Kindle 2 is everything customers tell us they love about the original Kindle, only thinner, faster, crisper, with longer battery life, and capable of holding hundreds more books. If you want, Kindle 2 will even read to you — something new we added that a book could never do. While we’re excited about Kindle 2, we know that great hardware is useless without vast selection. That’s why the Kindle Store offers customers over 230,000 books.”

At just over a third of an inch thin (0.36 inches) and weighing just over 10 ounces, the new Kindle 2 is pencil thin and lighter than a typical paperback. New buttons make it easy to turn the page from any holding position. The new 5-way controller on Kindle 2 allows for more precise note-taking and highlighting both up and down and side to side in lines of text. The new controller also makes it easy to quickly jump between articles and sections of newspapers. Kindle 2 comes with a redesigned power charger that is more portable than the previous Kindle charger.

Kindle 2 offers the experimental read-to-me feature “Text-to-Speech” that converts words on a page to spoken word so customers have the option to read or listen. Customers can switch back and forth between reading and listening, and their spot is automatically saved. Pages turn automatically while the content is being read so customers can listen hands-free. Customers can choose to be read to by male or female voices and can choose the speed to suit their listening preference. Using the read-to-me feature, anything you can read on Kindle, including books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and personal documents, Kindle 2 can read to you.

Kindle 2 uses the same wireless delivery system as the original Kindle — Amazon Whispernet. Customers can wirelessly shop the Kindle Store, download or receive new content in less than 60 seconds, and read from their library — all without a PC, Wi-Fi hot spot, or syncing.

Author Stephen King will offer a novella, “Ur,” which will only be available on Kindle later this month.

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth's Biggest Selection.

Amazon Web Services provides Amazon’s developer customers with access to in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon's own back-end technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any type of business. Examples of the services offered by Amazon Web Services are Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon SimpleDB, Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS), Amazon Flexible Payments Service (Amazon FPS), and Amazon Mechanical Turk.

HarperCollins Sales And Profit Plummet In Third Quarter

Tough economic times continue to plague the book publishing industry. This week HarperCollins reported the worst decline in sales and profits in its 50-year-history.

Here's our take on the sales and profit results.


HarperCollins Sales
And Profit Plummet
In Third Quarter

NEW YORK, NY (Authorlink News, February 6, 2008)—Sales at HarperCollins fell 25% from $406 million last year to only $305 million in the quarter ended December 31, 2008, the lowest results since February 2002. And book publishing income fell 65% to $23 million. Bestsellers on the New York Times list dropped from 92 titles a year ago to 50 titles this in 2008.

Part of the decline was attributed to the stronger dollar, which lowers the relative value of sales in the UK and Canada. Ten percent of the sales decline, or about $10 million, was due to the rising dollar, according to its SEC report, and contributed $2.64 million to the decline in profits. The bankruptcy by the U.K. distributor EUK also contributed to the earnings decline.
Discounting the exchange rate and bankruptcy, Harper UK and International CEO Victoria Barnsley, told the media that her unit has seen a 13.5 percent increase in sales and that both revenues and market share are increasing.

HarperCollins CEO Brian Murray declined to discuss the quarterly results.
Parent company News Corp. took a total write-down of $8.4 billion, including $2.8 billion against the $5.7 billion acquisition of the Wall Street Journal, and fell short of analysts' diminished expectations. In the conference call, Rupert Murdoch said "we are implementing rigorous cost-cutting across all operations and reducing head count where appropriate." He called the global economic crisis the worst NewsCorp has experienced in its 50 year history.

Borders Eliminates Executive Posts to Cut Expense

Here's some more serious news on the bookselling front, though it looks like it's a positive one. Whacking jobs at the executive vp level is probably a good thing. We were curious to see that it takes 27,000 people to operate 1100 stores. Could that be right? Read on. . .

Borders Eliminates
Executive-Level
Posts to Cut Expense

ANN ARBOR, Mich. Authorlink News, Feb. 3, 2009)—Borders Group today announced it will eliminate six vice president and ten director positions in order to further reduce expenses. Most of the cuts were made at the company’s Ann Arbor headquarters.

Specifically, Borders Group has eliminated the role of Executive Vice President of U.S. Stores held by Ken Armstrong, who joined the company in 2007. Steve Davis, Senior Vice President of Borders Group Operations, who has been with Borders Group for 15 years in a variety of operations management positions, will take on leadership of the store operations group. In addition, the post of Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer held by Susan Harwood, who joined Borders Group in 2007, has been eliminated as the company recently shifted information technology under the leadership of Dan Smith, a 14-year Borders Group veteran who was appointed Chief Administrative Officer one month ago. Within the Borders.com team, the position of Senior Vice President, E-Business held by Kevin Ertell has been eliminated as the company will now consolidate its online presence—including e-commerce and its popular Borders Media video programming— under the leadership of Rich Fahle. Fahle will now serve as Vice President, Borders.com. He has been with Borders Group for 10 years, most recently serving as Vice President, Content. Fahle is the originator of the Borders Media online video programming and has e-commerce experience with Borders, holding leadership positions beginning in the late 1990s within the company’s initial Borders.com organization.

Other changes at the vice president level include the elimination of the following positions: Vice President, Real Estate; Vice President, Human Resource Services and Vice President, Creative. In addition, Fred Boehler, Senior Vice President, Logistics, has announced he will be leaving Borders Group. These business areas will continue to be supported by existing personnel as functions are consolidated under the revised business structure.

At the director level, the 10 eliminated positions include posts based outside the corporate office—such as the roles of Sales Director and Waldenbooks Specialty Retail Regional Director—as well as director posts at the corporate office within various departments including Paperchase gifts and stationery, merchandise strategy, merchandise planning and replenishment and national event marketing.

“As we address the immediate priority of getting our company’s financial house in order, one of our goals is to more aggressively reduce annual expenses,” said Borders Group Chief Executive Officer Ron Marshall. “It is difficult to make the decision to eliminate jobs, especially those of talented and dedicated leaders who have significantly contributed to our organization, yet streamlining our leadership and eliminating management layers will help us be more agile and at the same time advance us toward our expense reduction goals.”

Headquartered in Ann Arbor, Mich., Borders Group, Inc. (NYSE: BGP) is a leading retailer of books, music and movies with approximately 27,000 employees worldwide. Through its subsidiaries, the company operates more than 1,100 stores primarily under the Borders® and Waldenbooks® brand names and offers online shopping through Borders.com.

Reed Drops Canadian Publishing Events

This just in from PW, which is owned by Reed. Rather shockingly, Reed Exhibitions Canada has closed its big book exhibit. But the show will go on for the U.S. BookExpo this May.

Here's the PW report:

Following the defection of many of the country’s largest publishers as well as a growing number of independent houses, Reed Exhibitions Canada has closed BookExpo Canada, the annual publishing trade event. Reed will also not move forward with plans to start a new consumer-oriented event in the fall in Toronto.
While BEC was faced with a growing number of publishers who said they were not planning to attend BEC this year, as recently as a few weeks ago Reed had still hoped to still put on BEC and launch the Toronto event. Greg Topalian, senior v-p for Reed Exhibitions, said, however, that it has become clear that there is not enough interest in the Canadian publishing industry to make either event a successful standalone operation. Reed was willing to run a smaller traditional business-to-business fair and complement that with a consumer show, but, “at the end of the day, there wasn’t enough signups for either,” Topalian said. “We’ve worked for a number of years to find ways to change the show or to have it evolve, but when you get to the point where your customers say you aren’t valuable any more it’s time to move on,” Topalian said. He said that while he would never rule out trying to do some book-related events in Canada in future years, “as of today, there will be no events in 2009.”
With the closure of BEC, Reed, parent company of PW, said it will now concentrate its energies on having BookExpo America serve the needs of the North America publishing and bookselling community. Click here to comment...
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