Noting the last-minute cancellation
of the previous attempt to buy Perseus,
Pietsch said he was “very happy to be at
this point.” He sees the purchase as “a
big step in expanding our range and
expertise in a wide number of new nonfiction categories.” Pietsch said he has
no plans to make major changes in
Perseus’s publishing operations. “They
have been publishing brilliantly, and
we want to help them be even better,”
he said. Perseus publishes about 500
new titles annually and had estimated
sales of about $100 million.
In about six months, HBG plans to
move Perseus’s New York City employees
into its own offices in Manhattan. HBG
also intends to move the Da Capo
Boston staff to HBG’s Boston office. The
purchase adds three cities to HBG’s
operational map, with Perseus having
offices in Philadelphia; Boulder, Colo.;
and Berkeley, Calif.
Ingram president Shawn Morin said it
is the company’s attention to operate
Perseus’s four distribution groups—
PGW, Consortium, Perseus Distribution
Services, and Legato Publishers Group—
alongside its existing Ingram Publisher
Services group. The combination of IPS
and the Perseus distribution group
will handle distribution for more than
600 clients. The Perseus distribution
group has client revenue of about
$300 million. Phil Ollila, Ingram’s
chief content officer, will oversee the
combined distribution unit.
The purchase includes Perseus’s
Jackson, Tenn., warehouse and its
Constellation digital asset management
and distribution service, as well as a
U.K. office, which will let Ingram
expand its footprint there, Morin noted.
For Morin, the most exciting aspect of
the purchase is that it continues Ingram’s
transformation into a service provider
for publishers in both physical and
digital markets. —Jim Milliot
purchase of Black Dog and Leventhal.
The Perseus acquisition adds another
6,000 titles to HBG, about 80% of
which are nonfiction.
When the Perseus deal is done, which
is expected by the end of March, HBG
will make the Perseus publishing group
a new division under Susan Weinberg, a
long-time Perseus executive who has
served most recently as senior v-p and
group publisher. Weinberg will join
HBG’s executive management board as
senior v-p and publisher of Perseus
Books, reporting directly to HBG CEO
Michael Pietsch.
Perseus comprises nine imprints:
Avalon Travel, Basic Books, Basic
Civitas, Da Capo Lifelong Books,
Da Capo Press, PublicAffairs, Running
Press, Seal Press, and Westview Press.
The publisher also has partnerships with
the Economist, the Nation Institute,
Participant Media, and the Weinstein
Company.
“Exc
wind
satis —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
ISB
ON SALE APRIL 26, 2016
“Kw
take
real
—Michael Connelly, author of the Harry Bosch Novels
Distributedby Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Chief Inspector Darko Dawson
Digs for Answers in Ghana’s
Illegal Gold Mines