Archives for June 2006

PGW Gets Rich Robert Kiyosaki and Donald Trump have picked PGW to distribute their October book, WHY WE WANT YOU TO BE RICH: Two Men — One Message. The distributor will also sell RICH WOMAN by Kim Kiyosaki, and two other fall titles from Rich Press. German Publisher Drops Google Suit Google has made progress on one legal front: German academic publisher Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft (WBG) has dropped its lawsuit, supported by the Borsenverein, seeking an injunction from a German court to stop Google from scanning books for its library program without permission from copyrightholders. They did so after a Hamburg […]

Bertelsmann Buys Portugal’s Top Retailer Bertelsmann’s Direct Group is buying Bertrand Livreiros, Portugal’s largest bookstore chain, for an estimated 20 to 30 million euros. The company has 48 retail outlets, and owns a publisher and a wholesaler as well. The book club group, which has been an anemic performer for Bertelsmann, is expected to stop showing losses in the UK and Germany this year. AFX Preparing for Thrillers The Arizona Republic previews the upcoming inaugural ThrillerFest, to be held in Phoenix starting tomorrow. Co-president of the International Thriller Writers association David Morrell offers this definition: “There is one theory that […]

Canada’s Price Adjustments Canada continues to reckon with high printed book prices as a result of the decline of the US dollar. As consumer pressure continues, publishers are announcing plans to lower prices on backlist as well as new books. The Globe and Mail notes: “Most publishers have already made pricing changes with new books, or reprints, that have been printed recently, reducing the difference between the US and Canadian price to about 20 per cent. Book sellers say that markup is reasonable because of the higher costs of distributing books in Canada. [Amusingly, this is the same rationale offered […]

Book by High-Ranking Agent In Conflict with Tenet Resurfaces at Carroll & Graf Former CIA European operations chief Tyler Drumheller and former CIA director George Tenet have clashed in their respective accounts of when agency leaders and senior Administration officials became aware of the unreliability of intelligence provided by the Iraqi defector known as Curveball, as first outlined in a presidential commission’s report last year. Over the weekend the Washington Post added a front page story drawing on interviews with Drumheller that “add new detail about the CIA’s embrace of a source whose credibility was already unraveling” (and he was […]

Monday, June 26 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 […]

Director’s Take on Disney Has LA Talking Director M. Night Shyamalan makes news in LA for remarks in the forthcoming The Man Who Heard Voices as he “crucifies the top executives at the company he long had considered his artistic home since his 1999 surprise hit The Sixth Sense: Walt Disney Studios.” The LA Times say, “as galleys circulate around town, that more than anything else has people musing about just how fragile relationships between artists and executives can be.” Written by Michael Bamberger with Shyamalan’s “extensive participation,” Gotham indicates the director will help promote the book when it releases […]