Turner Publishing has acquired certain general interest publishing assets from John Wiley & Sons Inc. (NYSE: JWa JWb).

The assets include about 1,500 titles from John Wiley’s pets, crafts and general-interest consumer publishing assets. Titles include Howell Book House and Baseball Prospectus. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Turner, a Nashville, Tenn.-based publisher, says the deal will expand its publishing categories.

This is the third assets sale associated with John Wiley’s consumer asset divestiture, which was announced in March 2012. On Nov 6, the company completed the sale of its culinary and Webster’s New World Dictionary publishing programs to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. On Aug. 30, the company sold its travel assets, including the Frommer’s brand, to Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG). 

The publishing industry is facing increased consolidation as it moves to compete with Internet retailers, such as Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN). In November, Bertelsmann AG and Pearson plc (NYSE: PSO) announced they would combine their book publishing companies, Random House and Penguin Group, to form the world’s largest consumer book publishing company. The combined company will be called Penguin Random House. Regulators said they would approve the deal at the end of March.

Restructuring Technology