According to a bankruptcy court filing made this morning, F+W Books has been sold to Penguin Random House. The auction price was $5.6 million.
In March craft and specialty publisher, F+W, filed for bankruptcy citing a decade long decline in the market for print magazine combined with a mismanaged moved into ecommerce for the company’s decline. The company’s assets were set to auctioned off this spring.
F+W was divided into two parts: Communities and F+W Books. The Communities division includes the magazines, websites, membership platforms, online learning, and ecommerce portions of the business. The Books division has now been sold. The auction for the Communities division is set for June 17.
Kerry Bogert, who served until March as the Editorial Director of Interweave Book and Fons & Porter (which had been rebranded as The Quilting Company), says the acquisition could be a positive one. “I think it could be a very strong match. Penguin Random House doesn’t appear to have a really cohesive craft book list and strategy from what I can see. It looks like they mainly have co-editions with Search Press. Acquiring the Interweave list could give them a great foundation and direction moving forward. And it’s such a well-recognized powerhouse of a company. They could do a lot for the craft book authors.”
UPDATED June 24 to add the final auction price.
This is interesting. I hope the Penguin Random House deal works out well.
We do, too.
After what F&W did to me as a small brick and mortar fiber arts shop, I am not at all surprised to hear that they failed miserably. As a long time seller of Interweave magazines, I was very disappointed in the service I received after Interweave sold to F&W.
Okay, well keep in mind that there are ALOT of readers who do not want to build a library of digital books for their various crafts. My knitting and crochet and weaving library brings me great delight and when the electricity or (gasp) the internet fails, I can always find my patterns, instructions and guidelines in the printed word that lives on a piece of paper surrounded by other pages in that thing called a book. Many older folks..over 40’s I’ll suggest … still want to hold a book. don’t diminish what our buying power can be.
I totally agree with Beverly. I would rather buy a good book than a new outfit…and do!
So the question that remains is what will happen to the magazines. Who will buy that part of F+W?
i agree with the other comments, I will still read on the internet, but want either a book or a DVD to look at for refreshing directions as I do so many different things. I have been dragged into receiving DVDs. Still prefer books.