McGraw-Hill Reports Growth, Digital Sales Soar

McGraw-Hill Reports Growth, Digital Sales Soar

YORK/AUTHORLINK NEWS/April 27, 2010--The McGraw-Hill Companies today reported an increase of 63.9% in net income to $103.3 million for the first quarter of 2010, compared to $63.0 million for the first quarter of 2009. Revenue grew by 3.7% in the first quarter to $1.2 billion. The company saw double-digit growth in digital sales in its professional division, while the international market slowed.

"Recovery in global bond markets, solid results in U.S. higher education, which is benefiting from double-digit growth in digital products and services, and an outstanding performance in global energy information markets were major factors in our first quarter," said Harold McGraw III, chairman, president and chief executive officer of The McGraw-Hill Companies. "The operating margin expanded in all three segments."

Education: Revenue for this segment increased by 1.5% to $317.2 million in the first quarter compared to the same period last year. The operating loss for the period was cut by 19.3% to $61.8 million. Foreign exchange rates increased revenue by $5.8 million, and had an unfavorable impact on the operating loss of $2.4 million.

The McGraw-Hill School Education Group's revenue declined by 9.0% to $111.6 million in the first quarter as a modest gain in the instructional materials market was offset by a decline in the testing market.

The McGraw-Hill Higher Education, Professional and International Group's revenue increased by 8.3% to $205.7 million in the first quarter.

In the elementary-high school market, the McGraw-Hill School Education Group increased sales. Because most school districts do not make significant new purchases in this period, supplemental, residual and intervention orders accounted for most of the activity in the adoption states. North Carolina, usually the only adoption state to purchase new materials in the first quarter, was not in the market this year. In the open territory, the McGraw-Hill School Education Group benefited from large orders for world languages in Ohio, reading in Maryland and music in South Dakota, as well as supplemental and residual orders.

Growth in the expanding formative testing market was offset by the planned phase out of statewide custom contracts in California, Florida and Arizona. McGraw-Hill Education's Acuity, a leader in the formative assessment market, continued to add new customers.

For McGraw-Hill Higher Education, Professional and International Group, surging sales of digital products contributed to a strong first quarter performance in the U.S. college and university market and improved results in professional markets.

Increased demand fueled by higher enrollments carried through from the fourth quarter of 2009 into the first quarter of 2010 in higher education. Double-digit revenue increases were produced by e-books, online courses and online homework management assessment products for students, including McGraw-Hill Connect(TM), the industry's most advanced interactive platform.

McGraw-Hill Higher Education's best sellers in the first quarter included:

Sanderson, Computers in the Medical Office, 6th Edition
Shier, Hole's Human Anatomy and Physiology, 12th Edition
Garrison, Managerial Accounting, 13th Edition
Judson, Law and Ethics for Medical Careers, 5th Edition
Feldman, Essentials of Understanding Psychology, 8th Edition

In professional markets, digital revenue increased at a double-digit rate and traditional book sales in retail channels got off to a positive start in the first quarter. AccessPhysiotherapy, the sixth vertical site in the AccessMedicine(TM) suite of online subscription platforms for medical students, educators and physicians, was launched in the first quarter. AccessPhysiotherapy includes content from across McGraw-Hill Education, including Anatomy and Physiology Revealed, a virtual dissection tool from McGraw-Hill Higher Education, and Clinical Sports Medicine videos from McGraw-Hill Australia.

Revenue, excluding the impact of foreign exchange, declined slightly in international markets.

Booksellers Name Indies Choice Award Winners

Announcing the 2010 Indies Choice Book Award Winners!

NEW YORK, NY/AUTHORLINK NEWS/April 12, 2010--The American Booksellers Association late last week announced the winners of the 2010 Indies Choice Book Awards, reflecting the spirit of independent bookstores nationwide and the IndieBound movement.

This year's winners were chosen by the owners and staff at ABA member stores nationwide in more than four weeks of voting. Book of the Year winners and Honor Award recipients are all titles appearing on the 2009 Indie Next Lists.

The 2010 Book of the Year winners are:

Adult Fiction: Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese (Knopf)
Adult Nonfiction: The Lost City of Z, by David Grann (Doubleday)
Adult Debut: The Help, by Kathryn Stockett (Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam)
Young Adult: Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic)
Middle Reader: When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead (Wendy Lamb Books)
New Picture Book: The Lion and the Mouse, by Jerry Pinkney (Little, Brown)
Kate DiCamillo was voted Most Engaging Author both for being an in-store star and for having a strong sense of the importance of indie booksellers to their local communities.

ABA members also inducted three of their all-time favorites into the Indies Choice Book Awards Picture Book Hall of Fame:

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day, by Judith Viorst and Ray Cruz (Atheneum)
Madeline, by Ludwig Bemelmans (Viking)
The Story of Ferdinand, by Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson (Viking)
"Our sincere congratulations go out to all of the 2010 winners," said ABA CEO Oren Teicher. "Every one of these authors has created a truly unique work that independent booksellers have enthusiastically supported and enjoyed handselling during the past year. We look forward to honoring each of them at the Celebration of Bookselling Lunch at BEA."

Five Honor Award recipients were also named in each category, except Picture Book Hall of Fame.

Adult Fiction Honor Award recipients:

Border Songs, by Jim Lynch (Knopf)
Brooklyn, by Colm Toibin (Scribner)
The Children's Book, by A.S. Byatt (Knopf)
Generosity: An Enhancement, by Richard Powers (FSG)
Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel (Holt)
Adult Nonfiction Honor Award recipients:

Animals Make Us Human, by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Lit: A Memoir, by Mary Karr (HarperCollins)
Stitches: A Memoir, by David Small (W.W. Norton)
Strength in What Remains, by Tracy Kidder (Random House)
When Everything Changed, by Gail Collins (Little, Brown)
Adult Debut Honor Award recipients:

The Earth Hums in B Flat, by Mari Strachan (Canongate)
The Piano Teacher, by Y.K. Lee (Viking)
The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet, by Reif Larson (Penguin Press)
Still Alice, by Lisa Genova (Pocket)
Tinkers, by Paul Harding (Bellevue Literary Press)
Young Adult Honor Award recipients:

Going Bovine, by Libba Bray (Delacorte Books for Young Readers)
If I Stay, by Gayle Forman (Dutton Juvenile)
Leviathan, by Scott Westerfeld, Keith Thompson (illus.) (Simon Pulse)
Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvater (Scholastic)
Wintergirls, by Laurie Halse Anderson (Viking Juvenile)
Middle Reader Honor Award recipients:

Al Capone Shines My Shoes, by Gennifer Choldenko (Dial)
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, by Jacqueline Kelly (Holt)
Odd and the Frost Giants, by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins)
A Season of Gifts, by Richard Peck (Dial)
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, by Grace Lin (Little, Brown)
New Picture Book Honor Award recipients:

All the World, by Liz Garton Scanlon, Maria Frazee (illus.) (Beach Lane Books)
The Curious Garden, by Peter Brown (Little, Brown)
Listen to the Wind, by Greg Mortenson, Susan Roth (illus.) (Dial)
Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11, by Brian Floca (Richard Jackson Books)
Otis, by Loren Long (Philomel)
Most Engaging Author Honor Award recipients:

Isabel Allende
Laurie Halse Anderson
Libba Bray
Michael Chabon
Abraham Verghese
All of the Indies Choice Book Award winners and Honor Award recipients are being invited to the Celebration of Bookselling Lunch on Wednesday, May 26, at New York's Javits Convention Center. The event is free and open exclusively to two booksellers from each ABA member store. Booksellers who would like to attend should register individually as soon as possible via an electronic reservation form on Bookweb.org. Questions regarding the lunch should be addressed to Mark Nichols, ABA industry relations officer, at mark@bookweb.org.

Random House Merges Ballantine and Bantam Dell

Random House Merges Ballantine and Bantam Dell

NEW YORK, NY/AUTHORLINK NEWS/April 13/2010--Random House today merged the Ballantine and Bantam Dell impritns into a single new Ballantine Bantam Dell division, under the supervision of senior vice president Libby McGuire. Bantam Dell executive vice president and publisher Nita Taublib will leave the company.

Random House Publishing Group president Gina Centrello said in an emploee memo: "I am saddened that with the organizational changes we are announcing this morning for Ballantine and Bantam Dell" Taublib will "step down." Centrello said Taublib is a "one-of-a-kind editor and a team-building publisher. . .she is one of the rare publishing executives who combines a keen editorial appreciation for a diverse range of authors with the skillful execution of all the administrative details that go into bringing their books into the marketplace."

Random House editorial director Jennifer Hershey will now serve as editor-in-chief of BBD, overseeing all Ballantine, Del Rey and Bantam editors. Ballantine editorial director Linda Marrow and Bantam editorial director Kate Miciak will report to Hershey. She will continue to edit her own list of authors as editor-at-large for the Random House imprint. Hershey's little Random position has not been filled. The editorial department will continue under Susan Kamil.

Scott Shannon, Publisher of Del Rey/Spectra, adds responsibility as mass market publisher for BBD, and Kim Hovey is associate publisher for the new group. Both will continue to report to McGuire. Gina Wachtel has been elevated to mass market associate publisher. Trade paperbacks for all the BBD lines will continue to be published under the direction of senior vice president and publisher Jane von Mehren.

Since an earlier consolidation of Bantam Dell, some departments already had merged, including publicity and rights. Until now, however, Ballantine and Bantam Dell had retained separate editorial departments.

Pulitzer Winner Harding to Publish With Random House

Paul Harding, winner of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel TINKERS, is under contract with Random House for his next two books. Random House Editor in Chief Susan Kamil, who is also the Editorial Director of The Dial Press, acquired U.S. rights at auction from Ellen Levine at Trident Media Group and will edit the novels.
The first novel in the contract will be titled ENON, and will be set in the same fictional town as TINKERS.
“We are thrilled that Paul Harding has been the recipient of this honor,” said Kamil. “He is a writer of astonishing talent and we are looking forward to being the publisher of his future work.”

Pulitzer Prize Winners Announced for 2010

Pulitzer Prize winners for 2010 Letters, Ddrama and Music were announced today April 12, 2010)

Paul Harding won the fiction prize for his novel “Tinkers,” while the drama award went to the musical “Next to Normal,” with music by Tom Kitt and book and lyrics by Brian Yorkey. Liaquat Ahamed won the history award for “Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World,” the biography prize went to T. J. Stiles for “The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt” and the general nonfiction prize went to David E. Hoffman for “The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy.”

Jennifer Higdon won the music prize for her Violin Concerto while the poetry award went to Rae Armantrout for “Versed.”

For the complete list of winners in Letters, Drama and Music go to The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/13/business/media/2010-Arts-Pulitzers.html

Barnes & Noble, Best Buy Team to Sell Nook

NEW YORK, NY/AUTHORLINK NEWS/April 12, 2010--Barnes & Noble, Inc. and Best Buy Co., Inc., leading consumer electronics retailer, today announced an exclusive partnership to distribute Barnes & Noble’s popular NOOK eBook Reader and accessories, as well as free BN eReader software through Best Buy in the United States. NOOK is expected to arrive at Best Buy beginning April 18, in time for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and graduation gift season.

Through the partnership, the NOOK eBook Reader and accessories, along with NOOK and Barnes & Noble eBook gift cards, will be prominently featured in Best Buy’s 1,070 stores nationwide and online at www.bestbuy.com. As with Barnes & Noble stores, NOOK at Best Buy will be featured at a special in-store display where customers can see, try and buy a NOOK for $259.99.

In its growing eReader selection, Best Buy named Barnes & Noble a preferred eBookstore solution, offering more than one million eBooks, magazines and newspapers for download within seconds. Best Buy will feature Barnes & Noble’s free BN eReader on select PCs (laptops and desktops), netbooks, tablets and smartphones sold at Best Buy and supported by its Geek Squad Agents, giving customers access to shop Barnes & Noble’s world’s largest eBookstore (www.bn.com/ebooks) and access their Barnes & Noble digital library anywhere they go.

“To date, we’ve limited NOOK distribution to Barnes & Noble retail and online stores and the customer response to our eBook Reader has exceeded our expectations. We have enormous respect for the Best Buy organization and its focus on providing technology solutions for millions of customers. We’re thrilled to bring NOOK, the BN eReader and our digital content expertise to Best Buy and its loyal consumer electronics-focused audience as a perfect complement to the book-loving Barnes & Noble customer,” said Kevin Frain, executive vice president of e-commerce, at Barnes & Noble.com. “Through this partnership, Best Buy customers will now have new and easy ways to access our expansive digital library on a variety of computing and mobile devices through BN eReader software and the Barnes & Noble eBookstore.”

Book Sales Decline in 2009

Book Sales Decline in 2009

New York, NY/Authorlink News/April 7, 2010— The Association of American Publishers (AAP) has released its annual estimate of total book sales in the United States. The report, which uses data from the Bureau of the Census as well as sales data from eighty-six publishers inclusive of all major book publishing media market holders, estimates that U.S. publishers had net sales of $23.9 billion in 2009, down from $24.3 billion in 2008, representing a 1.8% decrease. In the last seven years the industry had a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 1.1%.

Trade sales of adult and juvenile books were steady at $8.1 billion in 2009, CAGR fell to 1.8 percent. Adult Hardbound books showed healthy growth of 6.9%, $2.6 billion in 2009, however paperbound books for adult fell 5.2% to $2.2 billion. Hardbound books in the children and young adult category fell 5.0% to $1.7 billion while their paperbound equivalent grew 2.2% to $1.5 billion.

Over the period covered by the estimated data, the CAGR for hardbound books was 1.3% for adult books and 0.6% for juvenile. Paperbound books grew 2.6% and 2.7% over the 7 years.

Mass Market paperbacks decreased 4.0% and brought the category CAGR to -2.2%. Total sales were $1.0 billion in 2009. Book clubs and mail-order fell to $588 million, a fall of 2.0%.

Audio book sales for 2009 totaled $192 million, down 12.9% on the prior year, CAGR for this category is still healthy at 4.3%. E-books overtook audiobooks in 2009 with sales reaching $313 million in 2009, up 176.6%.
Religious book sales dropped 9.0% to $659m in 2009. However over the period of the estimate it has secured steady growth with a CAGR of 2.4%.
Educational sales in the Elementary and High School (El-Hi) category, those books produced for K-12 education, fell 13.8% to $5.2 billion in 2009, and CAGR for this category was -1.4%. The Higher Education category, which includes sales of college textbooks reached $4.3 billion this year up 12.9% on 2008. This brought the CAGR for college textbooks to 5.0%.

For a complete list of the preliminary estimated book publishing industry net sales for 2009 prepared by Management Practice, Inc, please visit the AAP web site at www.publishers.org

Ingram to Give Publishers Access to Apple IBookstore

La VERGNE, TN/AUTHORLINK NEWS/April 5, 2010--Ingram Content Group Inc. today announced that it will provide publisher content to Apple's new iBookstore.

Through CoreSource®, Ingram's solution for the storage, management, and distribution of digital content, publishers will be able to submit eBooks to iBookstore for availability on Apple's new iPad.

"Digital book distribution is changing the publishing industry, and Apple is positioned to be a key player with the iPad. With Ingram, Apple is working with industry experts who understand the fundamentals of book distribution and the complexities of the digital model. We're pleased to be able to offer this new channel to publishers," said Phil Ollila, Chief Content Officer, Ingram Content Group.

Ingram will help manage the relationship between publishers and Apple. This will enable a publisher's catalog to be ingested, converted into ePub, Apple's required format, and submitted to the iBookstore.

Ingram currently distributes over 500,000 digital assets to major retailers and distributors worldwide. Ingram invests in the latest digital technologies and resources so publishers can invest in the next generation of eBooks.

ABOUT INGRAM
Ingram Content Group Inc. provides a broad range of physical and digital services to the book industry. Ingram’s operating units are Ingram Book Company, Lightning Source Inc., Ingram Digital, Ingram Periodicals Inc., Ingram International Inc., Ingram Library Services Inc., Spring Arbor Distributors Inc., Ingram Publisher Services Inc., Tennessee Book Company LLC, Coutts Information Services, and Ingram Marketing Group Inc.

Borders Survives, Gets $90 Million Loan

Borders Announces $700 Million Revolving Credit Facility and $90 Million Term Loan

Company meets $42.5 million loan obligation

ANN ARBOR, Mich./AUTHORLINK NEWS--March 31, 2010 /Borders Group, Inc., which had been tetering on the edge of bankruptcy, today announced that it has entered into an amended and restated revolving credit agreement. The new, $700 million senior secured asset-based credit facility matures in March 2014 and replaces the company's existing revolving credit agreement, which would have matured in July 2011. Banc of America Securities LLC, Wells Fargo Retail Finance, LLC, J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. and GE Capital Markets, Inc. acted as joint lead arrangers and book runners. Bank of America, N.A. will serve as the administrative agent. Borrowings under the facility will be used for general corporate purposes.

The company also closed on a $90 million term loan credit facility, which will mature in March 2014 with the exception of $10 million of that facility, which Borders will amortize over four months beginning in September and concluding in December of this year. Banc of America Securities LLC acted as sole arranger and book runner on the facility and GA Capital LLC will serve as the administrative agent. Lenders are expected to include an affiliate of Stone Tower Capital LLC, a $39 billion credit focused asset management firm; funds managed by Tennenbaum Capital Partners, LLC, a Santa Monica-based special situations investment firm; and Gordon Brothers Merchant Partners.

Separately, Borders Group has met its obligation to Pershing Square Capital Management, L.P. for payment of the $42.5 million senior secured term loan due April 1.

Details of the financing arrangements will be included in a Form 8-K to be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

"We are pleased to have the continued support of our lending group and term loan investors," said Borders Group Chief Financial Officer Mark Bierley. "With the completion of these transactions, the company can turn its focus to driving sales growth and improving profitability."

About Borders Group

Headquartered in Ann Arbor, Mich., Borders Group, Inc. (NYSE: BGP) is a leading specialty retailer of books as well as other educational and entertainment items. The company employs approximately 19,500 throughout the U.S., primarily in its Borders(R) and Waldenbooks(R) stores.
SOURCE Borders Group, Inc.