The UK trade magazine, which has long been somewhat of a loss leader for the parent company’s more profitable operations, like the British Book Awards and their book business research agency BML, will cease publication as of the July 25 issue. Founder and chairman Fred Newman says: “This has been a sad and difficult decision to make, but the nature of the book trade which today offers a multiplicity of ways for publishers to sell books both to booksellers and to consumers, has changed dramatically. For the biggest book publishers the trade press is now only one of many options […]
Archives for July 2008
Full Version of Solzhenitsyn's First Circle in English
Harper has announced that next year they will issue “an uncut edition of Aleksander Solzhenitsyn’s THE FIRST CIRCLE a highly praised and controversial novel published 40 years ago and heavily edited because of its story of a Soviet prison camp,” the AP reports. A shortened version had been published in English in 1968 “despite objections by the author, who believed his work was being exploited for profit, and by scholars who feared that the book’s release could jeopardize his safety.”AP
Summerscale Wins Johnson prize
Kate Summerscale’s The Suspicions Of Mr Whicher: Or The Murder At Road Hill House won the UK’s £30,000 Samuel Johnson prize for nonfiction. The chair of judges Rosie Boycott declared it a “page-turning yarn” and said “Summerscale has brilliantly merged scrupulous archival research with vivid storytelling that reads with the pace of a Victorian thriller. The book is a rare work of non-fiction that mimics the suspense genre and leaves one gripped until the final paragraph.” Walker is the US publisher for the book.BBC
O'Reilly Will Sell Their Own Kindle Files, Thank You
Why give all the control to Amazon? O’Reilly is selling e-books from their own web site that are bundled to include three different formats together in one package (epub, PDF, and Kindle-compatible Mobipocket). The sales page includes a green-colored tease: “Save a Tree – Go Digital.” The program launches with “30 popular” O’Reilly titles. They are also making available a few titles–Devices of the Soul; Wikipedia Reader’s Guide: The Missing Manual; and Facebook: The Missing Manual–directly through Amazon in Kindle format. The O’Reilly e-price for two of those books is well above Amazon’s standard ceiling of $9.99 for Kindle editions, […]
F+W: "Publications" Out; "Media" In
F+W Publications has officially announced a name change to F+W Media, which “better reflects the company’s mission to deliver to passionate consumers the content, community, and data they desire–regardless of platform.” In other words, they are shifting “from a print focus to a web-enabled digital business.” To that end, F+W is building websites based around communities of enthusiasts and categories of interest that no longer focus on a single magazine or book title, having already launched MyCraftivity.com. And they aspire to make Everything.com, based on the Everything Series of books, a reference site they hope will rival such sites as […]
Borland Promoted
At Atria, Peter Borland has been promoted to editorial director. The entire department will report to Borland except for Emily Bestler and the members of the executive editorial director’s office. Borland and Bestler will both report to publisher Judith Curr. Curr writes: “Peter joined Atria in 2004 as senior editor and since then has distinguished himself both as an excellent acquiring editor and a thoughtful, conscientious manager. He has long served as a resource and sounding board for his colleagues in day-to-day business matters and his new title will allow him to take on a more formal role shaping our […]