The Beat: WB sells book/comics division

[Gregory]

From Heidi's daily column:

Time Warner sells book unit

In a move that could have unknown consequences for DC Comics, French media conglom Lagardere agreed to buy Time Warner's book division yesterday for $537.5 million. Time Warner books is the fifth-largest book publisher in the US and publishes such best-selling authors as James Patterson, Malcolm Gladwell and Sharon Osborne. Lagardere is also the parent company of Hachette, which publishes magazines including Elle and Premiere. The move divests Time Warner of a business unit it had been trying to sell for a few years, and gives Lagardere a much-sought entree into the US book publishing market, and makes it the world's third largest publisher, behind Pearson and McGraw-Hill.

Time Warner, which is based in New York, tried to sell its books division in 2003, but failed to attract bids much higher than $300 million, sources said at the time, and ultimately opted to keep the group. It has grown the group since then.

"I can't say we've ever been held back by Time Warner, but we were effectively quite small, and I'm not sure it's easy to be small in our big corporate publishing world any more," Mackenzie said.

A Lagardere spokesman said the price tag for Time Warner's book unit, home to the Little, Brown children's and trade publishing imprint, was a little more than one times 2005 sales.

Book publishers typically sell for about 1-1.2 times revenue, according to advisers on such deals.

"On paper, this looks like a good deal (for Lagardere), but we need to get more details," said one London-based analyst, who asked not to be named.

EDIT: My Mistake. Not the bold (emphasis mine)

This leaves DC Comics as a tiny publishing branch within the Time Warner family -- along with the powerful magazine division, of course, which publishes Time, People and Entertainment Weekly.

Although it was often rumored that Time Warner would consolidate DC into either its book or magazine division, DC has remained safely in the entertainment (i.e. film and TV) division, where they seem comfortably ensconced as an R&D unit.

The move does leave DC without its distributor: DC's book program-- which has been in place long before graphic novels became a cause du jour -- gained immensely from being distributed by Time Warner's powerful distribution arm. DC was giving out a concise "No comment" when questioned about where this left its book distribution.

To enter the realm of pure speculation, it's quite possible that the new Lagardere/Time Warner could continue to distribute DC's books, as carrying a line ofgraphic novels seems to be quite popular among book distributors.

Developing.
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I screwed up the title. Please note the bold.

[Ray G.]

I don't know why, but this makes me very nervous.

[Artie Pink]

Holy Shit!!

[Bervda]

Wow. Maybe a change in the book division will help with DC's horrible TPB scheduling?

[Gavin]

Wow. Maybe a change in the book division will help with DC's horrible TPB scheduling?

Hopefully they'll put more stuff into trade.

[Bervda]

Hopefully they'll put more stuff into trade.

I would actually (gasp) read some DCU books if their trade program resembled decent and sensible.

[Gavin]

I would actually (gasp) read some DCU books if their trade program resembled decent and sensible.

No kidding. Marvel totally kills on trades.

[Mike Haseloff]

... PANIC!!!