Son Decides to Publish Last Nabokov Novel Vladimir Nabokov’s son Dmitri has told Germany’s Der Spiegel that he has finally decided to ignore his father’s instructions to burn his final manuscript, THE ORIGINAL OF LAURA, and will instead have it published. Dmitri said, “I’m a loyal son and thought long and seriously about it, then my father appeared before me and said, with an ironic grin, ‘You’re stuck in a right old mess – just go ahead and publish!'” Dmitri has called the manuscript “the most concentrated distillation of [my father’s] creativity.” Guardian blog Thomas Nelson Cuts Staff The religious […]
Archives for April 2008
Lunch for Tuesday, April 22
Planeta Deal for Editis Looms Following tentative press reports earlier this month, French investment group Wendel has confirmed that it is in final, exclusive negotiations with Spain’s Grupo Planeta in the sale of France’s second-largest publishing company Editis, based on an enterprise value for the company of 1.03 billion euros (or $1.63 billion). They hope to finalize a sale agreement before the end of June. Planeta says they intend to finance the deal with equal parts of debt and equity. Reportedly, France’s Media-Participations had also made a substantial bid for the company. Editis’s portfolio includes the publishers Robert Laffont, Editions […]
Lunch for Monday, April 21
Signet Drops Cassie Edwards over Plagiarism Claims Publisher Signet said on Friday in a statement that it had “conducted an extensive review of all its Cassie Edwards novels and due to irreconcilable editorial differences, Ms. Edwards and Signet have mutually agreed to part ways. Cassie Edwards novels will no longer be published with Signet Books. All rights to Ms. Edwards’ previously published Signet books have reverted to the author.” The investigation was initiated after the Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Books site posted numerous instances of passages they said were copied from historical works. At first Signet defended Edwards’ work […]
Lunch Weekly for Monday, April 21
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 to put them all together. “nice deal” $1 – $49,000 “very nice deal” $50,000 – $99,000 “good deal” $100,000 – $250,000 “significant deal” $251,000 – $499,000 “major deal” $500,000 and up FICTION Debut Kenneth Wishnia’s THE FIFTH SERVANT, set in 16th century Prague during […]
Lunch for Friday, April 17
Buy Kindle, Love Jeff Jeff Bezos’s annual letter to shareholders is all about Kindle, casting the device as “exemplif[ying] our philosophy and long-term investment approach” as originally expressed in his 1997 letter (the year that Amazon jumped from $16 million in sales to to $148 million). He observes: “We also knew we shouldn’t try to copy every last feature of a book—we could never out-book the book. We’d have to add new capabilities—ones that could never be possible with a traditional book. “The early days of Amazon.com provide an analog. It was tempting back then to believe that an online […]
Lunch for Thursday, April 17
Book Sales Down 8 Percent at Courier Units “Weak sales at Dover Publications and Creative Homeowner” led to an 8 percent drop in revenues at Courier’s book publishing division, registering $16.8 million for the second quarter. Creative Homeowner suffered in particular from troubles in the housing market, but Dover sales were also down “nearly $1 million.” Pretax income for the division was $202,000, versus $1.4 million last year. Release But Book Sales, and Profits, Rise at WH Smith Reporting results for the six months ending February 29, UK retailer WH Smith said that same-store book sales rose 2 percent compared […]