BTW News Briefs

Post-BEA Report Points to Rising Attendance

Total attendance at BookExpo America 2015 rose 5.2 percent to 20,895 people, according to BEA Executive Director Steve Rosato.

Rosato noted, however, that the “total verified professional attendance” for the 2015 trade show in New York City, which excludes exhibitors but includes all book buyers, media members, and other attendees, went down 1.2 percent from 2014, coming in at 10,832 people. He also reported that BookCon, BEA’s consumer show, experienced a rise of 80 percent, with 18,000 people attending the two-day event this year, compared to 10,000 people in 2014.

Further on in his report, Rosato officially announced the dates for BEA 2016 in Chicago. The trade show dates will be Wednesday, May 11, through Friday, May 13, and BookCon will take place on Saturday, May 14.

“I am proud to say that BEA gave the vast majority of exhibitors and attendees the event they needed. Like anything there are adjustments to make but we are eager for the unique opportunities Chicago presents,” said Rosato. “BookCon is indeed changing the game as we can see the shift in more publishers going into the hybrid area of the show floor. We are excited about engaging the book loving public in Chicago and are also exploring the possibility of a second BookCon in NYC.”

Publishing Industry Survey Reports $28 Billion in Revenue in 2014

The U.S. book and journal publishing industry generated approximately $28 billion in net revenue in 2014, according to StatShot Annual, a yearly statistical survey published by the Association of American Publishers (AAP).

This number, which represents 2.70 billion units, reflects a slight revenue increase of 4.6 percent from 2013, which came in at $26.75 billion. These figures, released Thursday, include trade (fiction/non-fiction), K–12 instructional materials, higher education course materials, university presses, and professional books.

The annual survey also reported on the significant growth in the children and young adult category, the ongoing growth of e-books, and the growing popularity of audiobooks.

For the first time, StatShot Annual also gathered data from approximately 20 publishers currently in the business of providing their books via e-book subscription services. This data showed that subscription audiobooks were more popular than e-books in 2014, with 3.88 million audiobooks and more than 2.47 million e-book units sold.

We Need Diverse Books Announces Publishing Internship Grant Winners

We Need Diverse Books’ Internship Committee announced the winners of the first five spots in its new publishing internship grant program, which encourages different publishers to consider diverse student candidates.

Earlier this year, the group consisting of several volunteer team members and headed by author Linda Sue Park began accepting applications and essays from diverse internship applicants who applied for children’s literature positions at eight participating publishers. WNDB will give the students each $2,500 grants to participate in the program; diversity in this case is defined as people of color, people with disabilities, people from the LGBTQIA+ community, and other underrepresented groups.

The five winners are Julie Jarema of Bard College, who accepted an internship with Simon & Schuster; Feather Flores of Pomona College, who accepted an internship with HarperCollins; Kandace Coston of Barnard College and Columbia University, who accepted an internship with Lee & Low Books; Esther Cajahuaringa of Teachers College and Columbia University, who accepted an internship with Hachette Book Group; and Yananisai Makuwa of Cornell University, who accepted an internship with Macmillan.

Additional Winners Announced at PEN Literary Awards Ceremony

A number of additional winners were announced at PEN American Center’s annual Literary Awards Ceremony on Monday night, which honored authors in front of 500 guests at The New School in New York City.

While most of the award winners had already been announced in previous weeks, a few awards were held for that night. They included the $25,000 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction, which is given to a fiction writer whose debut work — a novel or collection of short stories — represents distinguished literary achievement and suggests great promise, awarded to Jack Livings’ The Dog (Farrar, Straus & Giroux).

The PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay for $10,000, which is given to a book of essays that exemplifies the dignity and esteem the essay form brings to literature, was awarded to Ian Buruma for Theater of Cruelty: Art, Film, and the Shadows of War (New York Review Books), while the PEN Open Book Award for $5,000 for an exceptional book-length work of literature by an author of color went to Claudia Rankine for Citizen: An American Lyric (Graywolf Press).

For her nonfiction piece Dead Boys, author Adriana E. Ramirez took home the $10,000 PEN/Fusion Emerging Writers Prize, which is dedicated to a promising young writer of an unpublished work of nonfiction that addresses a global and/or multicultural issue.

Simon & Schuster to Distribute Gallup Press

Under Simon & Schuster’s new global sales and distribution agreement with Gallup Press, the company will handle English language sales and distribution in all world territories for the press’ new and backlist publishing in print and digital formats, beginning January 1, 2016.

The current catalog for Gallup Press — the publishing arm of Gallup — consists of more than 30 titles on topics including leadership, strengths, education, job creation, entrepreneurship, and well-being.

The agreement, announced Tuesday, also dictates that Simon & Schuster will handle Gallup’s sales of translated editions in select foreign language markets.  

Bookmasters Signs International Sales & Distribution Agreements

Ashland, Oregon’s Bookmasters announced last week that, effective with the fall 2015 selling season, The Roundhouse Group and their affiliates will sell Bookmasters’ publishers’ titles into the United Kingdom and Europe, while ORCA Book Services will provide the warehousing and fulfillment support functions in the U.K. and Europe.

Bookmasters also announced that Magenta Entertainment, Ltd. will sell Bookmasters’ publishers’ titles into the Canadian market; in addition, Bookmasters will be sold through Canada’s Jaguar Book Group with Fraser Direct providing fulfillment and back office services.

“The addition of these sales organizations to Bookmasters’ existing and tenured sales team is of significant benefit to our client publishers,” said Jon Ackerman, senior vice president of sales at Bookmasters. “I’m confident that these new partnerships will expand our reach in these key markets.”

Lerner Partners with Quarto Library

Lerner Publisher Services, a division of Lerner Publishing Group, has partnered with Quarto Library, a new imprint for library bound titles, to be the exclusive U.S. and Canadian distributor of their fall frontlist titles to the school and public library markets.

Beginning in August 2015, the Minneapolis-based children’s book publishing services company will start distributing Quarto’s fall list, which features seven new children’s book series.

Anne Landa, the vice president and group publisher for Walter Foster/Walter Foster Jr. who also oversees Quarto Library, said, “With the expertise of Lerner Publisher Services our books will now be available in more schools and libraries than ever before.”