Publishers Weekly

Educational Development Corp. reported a 30% decline in sales in the fiscal year ended February 28, after revenue hit a record high of $204.6 million in the prior fiscal year. Net earnings declined 34.1%, to $8.3 million. Atlantic Editions is a new a book imprint developed by the Atlantic magazine in partnership with independent publisher Zando. Its first titles, penned by Atlantic writers, will appear in January 2023. Random HouseWorlds is a new imprint that will be home to all of Random House’s adult licensed titles starting in 2023. The dedicated division will be under the direction of Keith Clayton, v-p, deputy publisher of Del Rey, who will also serve as publishing director of Random House Worlds. Andy Ventris, director of the London Book Fair, will step down this summer. Ventris was appointed…

Earlier this month, Harper-Collins, Hachette Book Group, and Simon & Schuster all reported sales gains in the first quarter of 2022 over the same period last year, but predictions for the remainder of the year were muted. Publishing executives, or executives at their parent companies, said higher costs are likely to squeeze profits, and sales are expected to be flat or post small gains. Executives at Harper-Collins parent company News Corp said that while sales in 2022 will show little or no growth, they will still be above those of 2019, the last pre-pandemic year—a line that’s increasingly being used in publishing circles. News CEO Robert Thomson said that though growth will slow, he expects sales to be “significantly higher” than before the pandemic, and CFO Susan Panuccio said that…

Since the end of the Easter shopping season, unit sales of print books have followed a fairly regular weekly path, dropping by roughly 6% compared to a year ago. That was the result again in the week ended May 14, 2022, when sales fell 6.9% from the comparable week in 2021, at outlets that report to NPD BookScan. Adult fiction was the only category to post an increase, with units up 0.9%, despite no strong performance by any new release. Book Lovers by Emily Henry remained #1 on the category list, selling more than 36,000 copies. The bestselling new title was Tsugumi Ohba’s Death Note Short Stories, which sold just over 16,000 copies, putting it in eighth place on the category list, followed by Jennifer Weiner’s new book, The Summer…

Each fall, Dorothy, a Publishing Project, the feminist independent press run by Danielle Dutton and Martin Riker and headquartered in St. Louis, publishes two books only. They are mostly slim volumes, predominantly experimental, many translated, all—save one, by the French author Antoine Volodine, written under the feminine heteronym Manuela Draeger—by women. It’s an impeccably curated list: 24 books so far, with two more on their way in October: Some of Them Will Carry Meby Giada Scodellaro and A Horse at Night by Amina Cain. This year is a bit of an aberration for the press in that, for the first time, it will publish four books, including two released last month: Revenge of the Scapegoat, by American writer Caren Beilin, and New and Selected Stories, by Mexican author Cristina Rivera Garza…

In March 2020, New York State established an early Covid-19 lockdown zone in Westchester County, near the offices of Archie Comics. The world was about to change, recalled Archie editor-in-chief Mike Pellerito. “We had to act quickly and figure out a way to stay in business,” he said. Pellerito credited Archie CEO Jon Goldwater with doing what was best for the company’s staff. Virtually overnight, Pellerito said, Archie shut down its offices, moved to a smaller space, and “completely rethought the business.” Archie Comics, which marked its 80th anniversary in 2021, has about 20 full-time staff in its Pelham, N.Y., offices, along with scores of freelancers around the world, Pellerito said. Workflows had to be redesigned: writers and artists (some of whom still submitted assignments on paper via the mail) were…

Nearly a year after selling Wattpad to South Korea’s Naver for an estimated $600 million, Wattpad cofounder Allen Lau is transitioning into a new role: executive advisor for Naver subsidiary Webtoon, a mobile comics platform. Lau outlined his decision in a recent web post, reflecting on his 15 years at Wattpad and its growth to nearly 100 million users around the world. “The past year was record-breaking for Wattpad,” he wrote. “Since the acquisition—one of the largest for a Canadian technology company—we have never grown faster. With the Grand Plan in place, it’s the perfect time to pass the baton to Wattpad president Jeanne Lam and Wattpad W Studios president Aron Levitz.” Lam, who was named president of Wattpad last year, told PW that the company’s plan for compensating its content creators…