Archives for April 2006

National Geographic Unveils New View of Judas The National Geographic Society garners front-page coverage around the country for yesterday’s conference at which they unveiled a restored version of the Gospel of Judas — which asserts that Judas was Jesus’s closest friend rather than a traitor, and that Judas only did what Jesus asked of him: “You will sacrifice the man that clothes me,” Jesus tells him, warning that Judas “will be cursed by the other generations.” NGS says they have invested over $1 million in the project so far. As part of the announcement, they released two related books: THE […]

Coded Numbers Following last week’s release of paperback editions of The Da Vinci Code, there’s an abundance of reports on initial sales. Going from highest to lowest: — Vintage/Anchor publicity director Russell Perreault tells the AP they sold more than 500,000 copies in the first week on sale. No breakdowns between mass market and hardcover were given. — The announced first printing of 5 million copies has been lifted by another million copies. Perreault says they have shipped 5.7 million copies. — The outlets covered by Nielsen Bookscan (which often undercounts mass market books more than others) show sales for […]

Penguin Creates Christian Label We noted in late February that Penguin was at least considering an inspirational imprint and today the company has announced the creation of Penguin Praise, a Christian publishing program. Joel Fontinos will serve as publisher, and Berkley editor Denise Silvestro will be executive editor for the line. Rather than an entirely freestanding publishing program, Praise books will often be issued in conjunction with other Penguin Group imprints and the launch program includes existing Penguin Group authors such as T.D. Jakes and Reverend Don Piper. Putnam/Praise has licensed exclusive trade rights to the Contemporary English Version (CEV) […]

Personnel News Reed Exhibitions has hired Lance Fensterman as the new show manager for BEA, replacing Chris McCabe. Most recently, Fensterman was store manager at R.J. Julia Booksellers in New Canaan, CT. He had a short stint as general manager of Bound to Be Read bookstore in St. Paul, MN, as well, after working in the hotel industry and starting two different businesses. Bantam Dell senior editor Bill Massey is moving to Orion as editorial director of trade books. Before coming to Bantam five years ago, he had been publisher at Headline. Bookspan has hired Sue R.E. Geramian for the […]

Hachette Deal Closes The sale of the Time Warner Book Group closed on Friday as planned. The US branch is now officially the Hachette Book Group USA, and the UK operation is now the Little, Brown Book Group. The company notes “further details with regard to logos and any changes to publishing imprint names will be given by the companies themselves in due course.” Ford to Leave LB Publisher of Little, Brown’s children’s division David Ford has resigned as of mid-May, “to follow his dream of returning to London.” Associate Publisher and editor-in-chief Megan Tingley — who started her publishing […]

Monday, April 3 Our Usual Reminder If for some reason this has reached you even though you are not a paying member of PublishersMarketplace, please visit the link below to join us all the time for complete deal reports and more. Click to register http://www.publishersmarketplace.com/register.shtml Deal Reports Just e-mail to deals@PublishersMarketplace if you aren’t using the online form linked below. Report a deal using the online form The Key As usual, the handy key to our Lunch deal categories. While all reports are always welcome, those that include a category will generally receive a higher listing when it comes time […]