Archives for February 2006

Nelson Approves Bid to Go Private Thomas Nelson will take itself private, with financing from private equity group InterMedia Partners VII, in a deal valuing the company at approximately $473 million. The per share offer is about 20 percent higher than the stock traded last week. If approved by shareholders, the sale is expected to close by June 30. CEO Michael Hyatt says in the announcement, “This transaction provides Thomas Nelson’s shareholders with outstanding value for their shares and a significant premium over recent trading prices. Going private at this time is also in the best interests of the Company’s […]

Monday, February 20 FICTION Debut Liz Moore’s THE WORDS OF EVERY SONG, A novel in linked stories set in New York’s music industry, to Kendra Harpster for Broadway, in a nice deal, by Nina Collins at Collins Literary (NA). Erika Mailman’s first novel HEXE, to Allison McCabe at Crown, for six figures, for publication in fall 2007, by Marly Rusoff at Marly Rusoff & Associates (NA). Jon Clinch’s first novel FINN, to Will Murphy at Random House, at auction, by Jeff Kleinman at Folio (NA). Horror Dallas G. Releford’s CICADA SUMMER, in which other creatures more deadly and larger invade […]

Personnel News At HarperCollins, Marion Maneker has been named vp, publisher of Collins Business. He is credited with “expanding the range of books the imprint publishes and substantially improving its financial performance.” Separately, Tracy von Straaten is the latest veteran Simon & Schuster executive to head elsewhere. She will join Scholastic at the end of March in the new position of vp, trade publicity, overseeing all publicity for Scholastic’s trade books, reporting to Trade Marketing vp Suzanne Murphy. Von Straaten has been executive director at Simon & Schuster Children’s. And elsewhere in the publicity world, David Moench will join Ballantine […]

Organizations Rally to Limit Trademark Expansion The Authors Guild has joined with a variety of other organizations (including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Library Association) in alerting members to the potential dangers of the Trademark Dilution Revision Act, which comes before a Senate sub-committee today for hearings. (The House has already passed the legislation last April.) Yet another step in corporate-friendly intellectual property law, the particular concern of the Guild is that the bill as currently written would weaken traditional protections for noncommercial and news reporting usage of trademarks. In other words, simply mentioning trademarks in the text […]

Personnel News Paul Slovak has been promoted from associate publisher to publisher at Viking, overseeing “both the direction and the shape of the list and the execution of the Viking publishing program,” and continuing as an editor for Viking Penguin, Molly Stern has been named editorial director of fiction for Viking (in addition to her current title of executive editor at Viking Penguin) and Wendy Wolf has been named editorial director of non-fiction (also retaining her executive editor title). All three will continue to report to Viking president Clare Ferraro. In another shuffling of the deck at the Random House […]

RH Films Gets Focus Random House Films has selected two properties as the starting point for their film production joint venture with Focus Features. Variety reports that they will begin with Yasmina Khadra’s (a pen name for former Algerian army officer Mohammed Moulessehoul) forthcoming novel THE ATTACK, said to have already sold over 100,000 copies in France, and investigative reporter Bob Drogin’s forthcoming CURVEBALL. John Wells will produce THE ATTACK, which features an Arab surgeon who loses his wife in a suicide bombing. Drogin’s book expands on reporting about US intelligence before the war in Iraq, taking its title from […]