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Wednesday, June 30, 1999 IDG Books Worldwide, Inc. to Acquire Macmillan General Reference Brands IDG Books Worldwide, Inc. has announced it will acquire a portfolio of brands from the Macmillan General Reference Group (MGR) of Pearson Education through the purchase of all of the outstanding stock of MGR. The acquisition price is approximately $83 million, plus adjustments for changes in working capital at closing. The acquisition is expected to close by the end of July, subject to antitrust clearance and other conditions. "This acquisition will enhance our position as a global provider of knowledge brands," said IDGB President Steven Berkowitz. "Our proven know-how in building powerhouse brands can be applied to many of the high quality brands currently under the MGR banner. We believe this acquisition is a great strategic fit with our publishing program, our Internet objectives and our worldwide distribution capabilities." Among the brands included in the acquisition are: Frommer's Travel Guides(R) (including the frommers.com website), The Unofficial Guides, Places Rated Almanac, J.K. Lasser Tax Guides, Webster's New World Dictionaries, Arco Test Preparation, Betty Crocker Cookbooks, Weight Watchers Dieting, Howell House Pet Books, Chek Chart automotive training series and other titles. In total, over 3,000 titles are included in the acquisition. New Scholastic Inc. Magazine Group Formed In a restructuring of its multiple magazine businesses, Scholastic Inc. has announced that its Classroom Magazine Division will join Scholastic's Consumer and Professional Magazine Division to create the Scholastic Magazine Group. The initiative also includes plans to develop a major presence for Scholastic's magazines on the company's newly designed Internet project for school and home learning. The announcement was made by Richard Robinson, Chairman, President and CEO of Scholastic Inc. Robinson also announced that the division will be headed by Hugh Roome, Executive Vice President. Reporting to Roome will be: Greg Worrell, Vice President, Sales and Marketing; Steve Palm, Vice President, Scholastic Marketing Partners; and Fran Reilly, Director of Business Development. Also reporting to Roome will be David Goddy, Vice President and Editor in Chief of the Scholastic Magazine Group. The editorial staffs of the classroom magazines and Instructor will continue to report to Goddy, who joined Scholastic in 1984 and has served as an Editorial Director and as Editor in Chief of Classroom Magazines. He is supported by Editorial Directors Rebecca Bondor and Emily Sachar, and Director of Editorial Design, Audrey Shachnow. In making the announcement, Robinson said, "The benefits obtained by combining all of Scholastic's magazines into one division are enormous for our teacher, student and parent customers. Scholastic's goal has always been to create the best products, supported with the best service and offered at the best possible price. This restructuring allows us to share the benefits of these new economies of scale with our customer base of teachers, children and parents. We also want to provide the most effective leadership for our magazines as we move toward the 21st century and find new ways to make the information and reading we deliver through our magazines even more relevant in the Internet age." The change also includes an editorial initiative to increase the use of Scholastic's popular characters such as Clifford the Big Red Dog, Ms. Frizzle from Scholastic's The Magic School Bus, and best-selling book series such as Dear America and Animorphs into the content of the classroom magazines. Scholastic's 35 classroom magazines will join the company's magazine publishing for adults and consumers which includes Scholastic's professional titles Instructor, Scholastic Early Childhood Today, and Coach and Athletic Director, as well as its parenting magazine Scholastic Parent and Child, which has a 1.2 million circulation. Torstar Announces Strategic Alliance With Women.com Torstar Corporation has announced its plans to develop a major Internet presence in electronic commerce for its Harlequin Book Publishing business. As the first step, Harlequin has signed an agreement to partner with Women.com Networks, a leading Internet network for women, to integrate Harlequin into the Women.com Network. Torstar's board has approved and intends to make an equity investment in Women.com Networks, including the appointment of Torstar President and CEO David Galloway to the Women.com Board of Directors. Harlequin's strategy is to build a strong community-of-interest website that will attract romance readers that are online. It is estimated that by 2002, over 20 million romance readers will be online in the United States. Visitors to the Harlequin website on Women.com will have the opportunity to purchase Harlequin books, join the book club, discuss the latest titles with authors and other readers and learn to write romance novels. David Galloway, President and C.E.O of Torstar Corporation, said, "Creating this web site is a tremendous opportunity that few Canadian companies can match. We have an international brand name, the ability to advertise our site in the 160 million books we publish worldwide, and we already have the capability to do e-commerce fulfillment. We intend to spend up to Cdn. $30 million over the next three years to ensure we are the pre-eminent romance site on the web. This partnership with Women.com, a top destination for women on the web, is an excellent first step toward achieving our goal." Fireside Books Partners With eBay to Publish Collecting Guide Simon & Schuster's Trade Paperback group has announced that the Fireside Books imprint will publish The Official eBay Guide to Buying, Selling, and Collecting Just About Anything, by Laura Fisher Kaiser and Michael Kaiser. The book will feature an introduction by Pierre Omidyar, founder and chairman of eBay. The first printing of 100,000 copies will be available in November for a suggested retail price of $13. "As we all know, collecting is hot!" said Mark Gompertz, Vice President and Publisher of Simon & Schuster's Trade Paperback group. "The person to person business - pioneered by eBay - has given us this outstanding opportunity to couple Fireside's premier reputation for publishing quality paperbacks with a company whose brand name will immediately tell book buyers - this is the best book and only book I should own on collecting!" Ken Beach Named Publisher of SmartReseller Ken Beach, a veteran information-technology sales and marketing strategist has been named publisher of Ziff-Davis' Sm@rtReseller. Beach replaces Sloan Seymour, recently named publisher of PC Week. Jack Dolce, executive vice president of ZD's Interactive Enterprises Division, termed Beach a "top performer throughout his career with the unique ability to analyze vendors' situations and custom-craft solutions to further their marketing needs and initiatives. Under his guidance, Sm@rtReseller will continue on its steep growth curve." Beach, with nearly two decades of publishing experience, most recently was a corporate sales director at Ziff-Davis. Previously, he drove sales efforts for PC Magazine and was a launch-team member at Corporate Computing. Before that, Beach was with CMP's EE Times and with Electronic World News. dbusiness.com Announces Editorial Staff Expansion dbusiness.com has announced a large expansion of its editorial department designed to guarantee comprehensive coverage of the dbusiness.com news markets. "These people are the best and brightest in the business-to-business news game" stated Thomas Maffettone, chief executive officer of dbusiness.com. "We are excited to have them on board, and we know that with such superior editorial support that we will continue to be the destination for local business news." Two Editorial Staff additions include Kurt Greenbaum and Charles D. Lunan. Kurt Greenbaum is executive editor of dbusiness.com, joining the company after 13 years with the Sun-Sentinel as a reporter, assistant city editor and founding editor of the Sun-Sentinel Internet Edition. Charles D. Lunan is managing editor of dbusiness.com. Lunan has 15 years of business journalism experience and has worked in Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico. He most recently worked as an assistant city editor with the Sun-Sentinel in South Florida. dbusiness.com is an online source for local business news, providing business coverage on public and emerging companies nationally, as well as a variety of investment and research tools. The dbusiness site also features Release Tracker, a database of local press releases, and Venture Tracker, a news and information hub that tracks venture-finance backed companies. dbusiness.com also publishes digitalsouth magazine. AfricanWatch Debuts in California Launched today, AfricanWatch will be published bi-monthly by the newly formed AfricanWatch Publishing Corp. The new magazine is edited for news, business, politics, technology, sports and entertainment. AfricanWatch is subscription-based with a news stand price of $2.50 USD. Excerpts from AfricanWatch and other information will also be available at www.africanwatch.com. "AfricanWatch is just what this country needs to get an insightful look at our mother Africa," said Aubrey Stone, president of The California Black Chamber of Commerce, the nation's largest chapter. "Not only does this magazine fill a much-needed editorial void; it also is a superb example of entrepreneurship, hard work and determination. I applaud the efforts of this publishing company and we are showing our support by co-sponsoring the magazine's debut celebration in Sacramento today." AfricanWatch is the brainchild of Nigeria-born, Gozie S. Ogbodo. A law and journalism graduate from Anambra State University, holding a Masters in Law and International Business Transactions from Golden Gate University, Ogbodo partnered with Executive Editor, Peter O. Nwosu. "We are a `features' magazine providing critical analyses and commentary, competing to report the truth, expose the ignorance and correct the mis-education of the past," declared Peter Nwsou, executive editor. "We want to be viewed as the encyclopedia of African perspectives and the world -- a source to be quoted," expressed Gozie S. Ogbodo, founder and publisher of AfricanWatch Publishing Corp. AfricanWatch's format consists of feature sections, including Politics, Portraits of Africa, Peoples of Africa, Milestones, Notables, Technology, Entertainment and Sports. Departments include the Publisher's note, Letters to the Editor, Perspectives and Briefs on religion, health and other issues. New Editor in Chief Named to Enterprise Development Magazine Fawcette Technical Publications has announced the appointment of Sean Gallagher as Editor in Chief of Enterprise Development magazine effective July 12, 1999. "I'm very excited to have Sean on board." stated Jeff Miller, Vice President of Publishing at FTP. "Having worked previously as a systems integrator and IT consultant, Sean brings practical, real-world insights to Enterprise Development" said Miller. "With his extensive editorial experience, Sean will continue to serve IS professionals and corporate development managers with the information they need." Gallagher is currently the managing editor of InformationWeek Labs, where he has managed product reviews and technical features since 1995. He is also both a print and online columnist for Information Week, writing "TechView" and "Bleeding Edge." Richard Morgan Joins The Daily Deal American Lawyer Media Inc., a legal journalism and information company, has announced that Richard Morgan is joining the company as Assistant Managing Editor of The Daily Deal, a new ALM daily newspaper and website that will launch on September 15th. Morgan, a former editor in chief of AdWeek and New York Observer columnist, will join The Daily Deal next month from Daily Variety, where he reported on entertainment and media. The Daily Deal will provides news for deal-makers around the world, including corporate executives, lawyers, bankers and accountants, as well as regulators and lobbyists. The print and online newspaper will serve its readership by reporting on news and trends relating to a wide range of transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, corporate restructurings, private equity and venture capital investments. As Assistant Managing Editor of The Daily Deal, Morgan will lead coverage of transactions in the media and entertainment industries. Morgan is leaving his post at Daily Variety after having worked there for the past year. Before that, he wrote The New York Observer's "The Mad. Ave Crowd," a column on marketing and advertising. Morgan's career at AdWeek began in 1981, and he held various senior-level positions before becoming its editor in chief in 1986. He also was a writer and economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Around the Web Bookseller Quits Battle with Internet BookWire Coach Helps Suffering Writers by Listening Post-Gazette Faulkner Story to be Published -- 50 Years Later CNN Humor Has Become a Staple of the Internet Star-Telegram.com Marshall Loeb Leaving CJR for Marketwatch MediaCentral New Travel Imprint from PGI PublishersWeekly News Never Dies Online PC Magazine Reuters To Supply News To New York Times Web Site Reuters Roger Black Hired to Redesign Los Angeles Times Editor & Publisher Slashdot Sells Out Salon.com Time Warner, Viacom Discuss Book Merger MediaCentral Time Warner Books, Simon & Schuster Consider Joint Venture for Book Operations BookWire Yahoo to Own GeoCities Content, Riling Members L.A. 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