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Pop!: Fizzy drinks. A trillion dollars. The adventure that ends with a bang by Mitch Johnson

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An outrageous theft. A huge reward. Two friends on the run. An uproariously funny, action-packed new adventure about the power of courage, standing up for what’s right, and fizzy drinks, from the award-winning author of Kick (Branford Boase Award winner in 2018).

Queenie stares out at the ocean and dreams of a world beyond her small-town. She’s about to get her wish… When the priceless recipe to the world’s most popular drink – thought to be lost forever – washes up at her feet, Queenie’s life instantly changes. Everyone wants it, and with a $10 million bounty on her head, Queenie’s soon on the run. Pursued by bounty hunters, black-ops helicopters and angry mobs, Queenie’s journey involves a trip to Area 51, a man-eating alligator and an unlikely new friend, Todd. But being on the run also makes Queenie begin to see the world around her more clearly – a world in which a big corporation’s excess has left the planet covered in its plastic bottles and waste. Suddenly, the home she always dreamed of escaping, and the ocean she grew up with and took for granted, don’t seem so bad. If Queenie and Todd can bring down the bad guys, maybe she can go back home and make a difference…

Rule Of Threes by Marcy Campbell

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An interior design enthusiast, twelve-year-old Maggie Owens is accustomed to living her life according to her own precise plans. But when she learns about Tony, a mysterious half-brother her own age who needs a place to stay, any semblance of a plan is shattered. Tony’s mom struggles with an addiction to opioids, and now she’s called upon Maggie’s dad-who is also Tony’s dad-to take him in. On top of everything, Maggie must also come to terms with the Alzheimer’s afflicting her beloved grandmother.

While Maggie can strive for-and even succeed in-a picture perfect design, when it comes to family, there is no such thing as perfection. To work through the sudden struggles rocking her world, Maggie must learn the importance of having an open heart.

At PRH, Producing a Publishing Powerhouse

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A useful summary, 5 years on, of the Penguin/Random House merger:

July 1, 2018, marked the fifth anniversary of the completion of the Penguin Group–Random House merger, a deal that created the world’s largest trade publisher, which had $3.4 billion in global sales in 2017. That revenue total was generated by a company that has 275 worldwide imprints, sells some 700 million books per year, and publishes 14,000 new releases annually, all produced by about 10,000 employees. And PRH legacy and current imprints have published more than 60 Nobel laureates.

>>> https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/77617-at-prh-producing-a-publishing-powerhouse.html

Muswell Hill Children’s Bookshop Up For Sale

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MuswellHillAfter 20 years of running this very special bookshop, we have decided that, for family reasons, the time has come to look for a new owner who will build on the shop’s many strengths to take it forward for the next 20 years.  For further details please contact Kate Agnew at the Children’s Bookshop, 020 8444 5500, or John Agnew: john@hmpbooks.demon.co.uk

via Children’s Bookshop, Muswell Hill – About Us.

Daunt Admires Waitrose And Next But Says He Would Royally Screw Up Selling Frocks

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Extract from a long interview with James Daunt in Retail Week

RetailWeek

Clearly Daunt admires Waitrose. But could he ever see himself running another retailer? After all, if he manages to turn Waterstones around, Daunt will be a man in demand. “I have a great interest in the way other retailers work and I admire hugely what they do at Next and Waitrose, and I absolutely unapologetically go and steal what others do. But I am a bookseller.

“You could put the riches of the world before me to run the Body Shop or whatever it is, and I wouldn’t do it. [Next boss Simon] Wolfson sells frocks, that’s what he does. I expect he would royally screw up the bookshops if he came to run them and I would definitely royally screw up his frocks business if I was to take over that.”

Does Daunt have any regrets about leaping out of his comfort zone and attempting a turnaround on such a huge scale? Emphatically yes, he says. But more because he lacks the time to pursue his love of being a shopfloor bookseller than anything to do with the scale of the task at hand.

“And I don’t get home as early as I used to either. It’s a lot of hard work,” he says.

“My analogy is it’s like skiing a couloir – it’s very steep and very narrow and really fun, your legs are going like billy-o, and if you’re asked if you have regrets half way down, it’s, ‘oh shit’. But there are none when you get to the bottom – assuming you’re still standing.”

via http://www.retail-week.com/people/interview-waterstones-boss-james-daunt-turns-over-a-new-leaf/5058250.article?blocktitle=Entertainm

A Harsh Take On Waterstones

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‘Bookworm’ (an agent? an editor?), writing for International Business Times, takes a cold and critical look at Waterstones’ current strategy:

Waterstones’ strategy appears to be taking away individual buying power from branches, selecting stock for all locations around the UK centrally, while allowing managers to choose the selling discount: in other words they are ‘allowed’ to choose £6.99 or £7.99 for books they weren’t trusted to buy and probably don’t want.

…..

Recently one of my top authors went to his local branch to see how sales of his novel were doing: there were no copies left, they had sold out, and he asked if they’d be getting any more in. No, he was told, they wouldn’t. In what other business do you sell out of a product then not bother to re-stock what’s obviously popular?

via Waterstones: The Final Chapter? – IBTimes UK.