Publishing

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has officially filed a major restructuring plan to redistribute the company’s $3.1 billion in debt, entering what they called “a prompt, court-supervised, chapter 11 process.”

The company predicts they will emerge from the restructuring by the end of June. They had revealed the pre-packaged bankruptcy plan earlier this month.

Here’s more from the publisher: “Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will maintain normal day-to-day business operations throughout the restructuring process, and we expect no disruptions to our relationships with our customers, agents, authors, employees, business partners and suppliers. Our customers will continue to receive the high quality content they have come to expect from us, and service without interruption. Additionally, our plan provides for our suppliers and vendors to be paid in full during and after this process and for our employees to continue receiving their usual pay and benefits.”

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Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt hopes to mount “comprehensive financial restructuring plan” to redistribute the company’s $3.1 billion in debt. The plan includes “a prompt, court-supervised, chapter 11 process.”

Here’s more from the company: “If approved by the requisite percentages and implemented as proposed, HMH will eliminate $3.1 billion of debt and reduce current annual cash interest costs by approximately $250 million … To facilitate these important changes to HMH’s capital structure, in the near future the Company plans to utilize a ‘pre-packaged’ plan of reorganization that will be implemented through a prompt, court-supervised, chapter 11 process. This will have no impact on the Company’s day-to-day operations.”

The move would redistribute “bank and bond debt into 100% of the equity” in the restructured publisher. Citigroup Global Markets has already made a commitment for $500 million in financing to help the company redistribute its debt.

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Random House book designer Chip Kidd gave a TED talk called “Designing books is no laughing matter. OK, it is.” The video embedded above features his entire talk.

Many publishing executives feel that the cover design is the number one marketing tool in their arsenal. Kidd drew on stories from his twenty-five year career working at Alfred A. Knopf where he creates book covers with “a wicked sense of humor.”

During the talk, Kidd discussed the conceptual processes behind the iconic book covers for Michael Crichton‘s hit novel Jurassic Park (1990), Augusten Burroughs‘s memoir Dry (2004) and the English translation of Haruki Murakami‘s 1Q84 (2011). He shared the following tips on book designing:

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Simon & Schuster’s paperback imprint Pocket Books has returned to the publishing world as an eBook imprint. The new digital publisher will release titles in various genres including: romance, thriller and mystery. This includes works by authors including: V.C. Andrews,Nathan Dodge, Cindy Gerard, Laura Griffin, Sabrina Jeffries,Carrie Lofty, and Michael R. Underwood.

Lauren McKenna, has been named Editorial Director of Pocket Star, and will oversee the imprint. Louise Burke, EVP and Publisher stated: “Lauren has been instrumental in helping shape our vision for Pocket Star. She will be vital to the further development of this new imprint.”

Follow this link to check out Pocket Star’s free eBook sampler, which is available to read as a PDF.

Glenn Beck‘s publisher Mercury Ink is taking the  talk show host’s advise and publishing a series of eBooks about morality from author Chris Stewart.

The stories, which were originally written for a Mormon audience, have been expanded to address current events for more widespread readers. Here is more about the series from the press release: “The Wrath & Righteousness series is a first-rate, ripped-from-the-headlines thriller about the eternal battle between Light and Darkness. Focusing on the politics of the Middle East, and leveraging the author’s detailed understanding of defense technology, the series explores just how quickly the world can succumb to evil.”

The eBook series, will include 10 “episodes” over the next year, beginning on May 8th. The first eBook in the series, called Wrath and Righteousness, will cost $2.99 and each subsequent edition will be $5.99. The Wall Street Journal has more:”Mr. Beck suggested that the pricing of the new series may change as the new books roll out. ‘We’re playing with the models on everything,’ he said.”

Readers, writers and publishing professionals can share their thoughts about the Department of Justice’s lawsuit filed against Apple and publishers over eBook prices.

According to The Tunney Act, “members of the public have an opportunity to comment on the proposed settlement before it is accepted by the court.”

If you want to share your thoughts, Dystel & Goderich Literary Management posted information about how to contact the DOJ. Your submissions will be archived–the literary agency also noted that “written comments received from any person to be filed with the court and published in the Federal Register.”

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Pearson, the corporate parent of Penguin Group publishers, announced that company-wide sales had grown by eleven percent over the last three months. The release also said the company would “mount a robust defence” against the Department of Justice price fixing lawsuit. Check it out:

Following several years of particularly strong performance relative to the overall consumer books market, we expect Penguin to perform in line with its industry this year. It will benefit from its consistently strong publishing schedule, which is more concentrated in the second half this year, and its strong position in the fast-growing market for digital books. The industry continues to face significant structural change and, as one example, we intend to mount a robust defence of our actions in the civil proceedings recently announced by the US Department of Justice against Apple and several consumer book publishers including Penguin.

The company also broke out circulation statistics for The Financial Times, counting 320,000 print subscribers and 285,000 digital subscribers.

When novelist Jackie Collins revealed she would self-publish a book for her fans (during a So What Do You Do? interview with Mediabistro), the article generated thousands of responses around the Internet.

Collins herself has written a blog post about the project, reassuring her readers: “I have fantastic relationships with my two publishers, Simon & Schuster UK and St. Martin’s Press US. No juicy story about a tiff or spat between us—we’re good.” At the same time, she offered some advice for aspiring writers:

Publishers are in the publishing business to make money (and that’s a good thing). But remember that their goal is NOT to make your dreams of being an author come true. Their goal is to make money through the careful and thoughtful exploitation of your book. So, you have to fight for what you want. (Even I do.) If you want a full-page ad in People magazine, you have to get it in your contract; otherwise it’s not going to happen, and you’ll hear things like, “it costs too much.”

Chicago-based storyteller Willy Chyr is hosting an experiment he calls The Collabowriters, a “novel by the internet.”

Here’s more about the experiment: “The novel is written one sentence at a time. For each sentence, anyone can enter a submission (up to 140 characters). Users, such as yourself, then vote on each submission, giving it a score of either +1 or -1. The submission with the highest score becomes the sentence in the novel, or at least until another submission surpasses its score.”

Once a submission receives a score of five, Chyr (pictured, via) will add it to the novel. As of this writing, four paragraphs (333 words) have been written. This crowdsourced novel stars a widower named Zachary.

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Many people use the excuse that they love the smell of an old book to describe why they prefer print books to eBooks. Abe Books helps explain the science behind the smell of old books in the above video.

In the video, Richard from Abe Books says, “A physical book is made up of organic matter that reacts with heat, light, moisture, and most importantly of all, the chemicals used in its production. And it is this unique reaction that causes the unique used books smell.”

Here is more from Abe Books’s Youtube post: “Chemists at University College, London have investigated the old book odor and concluded that old books release hundreds of volatile organic compounds into the air from the paper. The lead scientist described the smell as ‘A combination of grassy notes with a tang of acids and a hint of vanilla over an underlying mustiness.’”

Via The Atlantic.