‘The Guardian’ Launches Print Bookaizine (mediapost.com)

Amazon announced 14 new renewable energy projects in the U.S., Canada, Finland, and Spain to advance its ambitious goal to power 100% of company activities with renewable energy by 2025—five years ahead of the original target of 2030. The new projects bring Amazon’s total renewable energy investments to date to 10 gigawatts (GW) of electricity production capacity—enough to power 2.5 million U.S. homes. Amazon is now the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in the U.S. and the world. The latest utility-scale solar and wind projects will supply renewable energy for Amazon’s corporate offices, fulfillment centers, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centers that support millions of customers globally. These projects will also help Amazon meet its commitment to produce enough renewable energy to cover the electricity used by all Echo devices in use. These new projects support hundreds of jobs while providing hundreds of millions of dollars of investment in local communities.

With the e-book market showing no signs of returning to robust growth, two of HarperCollins’s main priorities in fiscal 2018 are global expansion and broadening its distribution base in North America, HC’s CEO Brian Murray told PW after the release of the publisher’s financial results for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2017. In the just-concluded year, EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) was $199 million, 7.5% higher than in fiscal 2016, despite a decline of $10 million in sales. Several factors impacted HC’s sales performance: there was one fewer week in the fiscal 2017 than in fiscal 2016, which cost $19 million, and the company suffered from the negative impact of currency fluctuations. Murray said he was “thrilled” with fiscal 2017 from both a publishing and financial standpoint and that the continued decline in e-books isn’t a major concern at the moment. He noted that, in the North American market, gains in print book sales and digital audio made up for the drop in e-book sales and that HC’s print frontlist and backlist sales were almost strong enough to match the revenue generated in fiscal 2016 by Go Set a Watchman. Among the company’s top-selling titles in the year were Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance, The Magnolia Story by Chip and Joanna Gaines, and Jesus Calling and Jesus Always by Sarah Young. Click Read More below for more of the story.

The Great Lakes Graphics urges all industry members to read this message, act, and share with your industry network. These programs are critical to the future of the printing industry. The undergraduate Graphic Communications (GCOM) program at the University of Wisconsin-Stout prepares students for careers in the graphic communications industry. The hands-on major and minor cover the fundamentals of print production, including pre-press/premedia; color management; offset, digital, flexo and gravure print technologies; post-press/finishing processes; project management and estimating; marketing techniques; and business practices. UW-Stout campus leaders recently have announced the suspension of new admissions to the GCOM program for incoming freshmen effective Fall 2022. The GCOM program website now states the following: Admission to this program is suspended effective Fall 2022. A group of industry professionals, faculty and higher education consultants are working on revising the current curriculum to meet the printing industry needs. Courses for currently enrolled students who are pursuing a GCOM major or minor will continue to be offered.