Charles McGrath celebrates the colorful life of publisher Barney Rosset in advance of his lifetime achievement award from the National Book Foundation. He quotes the old line of Rosset’s, “I had a very good publishing career, but not money-wise. We got rid of the money.” On his landmark legal battle for the right to publish Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer–which inspires in the print headline that Rosset “fought Puritanism, and won,” Rosset’s take is, “I loved that book. When I was a young man, it never occurred to me that it was about sex. What interested me was that Miller […]
Archives for September 2008
Judy Blume, at Blumesday
The LAT covers “a sold-out event celebrating the 70th birthday of the bestselling author” Judy Blume, dubbed Blumesday. Like Barney Rosset, Blume fought a kind of Puritanism: “Blume took them on, boldly going where young adult fiction had previously feared to tread, writing in the first person on topics that had long been taboo. In the process, she earned a following so devoted that 30-plus years later, many of her original readers still can’t get enough. “This was definitely the case at M Bar, where a packed house listened to readings and watched comedic reenactments of scenes from their favorite […]
People
At HarperCollins’ Speakers Bureau, Julie Elmuccio has been promoted to assistant manager, while Blair Bryant Nichols moves up to coordinator. Director Jamie Brickhouse, who has signed on an additional 75 authors since his arrival in 2006, has been made a vice president. Also at Harper, Frank Albanese has been promoted to svp, supply chain. He has been at Harper since 1994. Ron Longe has joined Media Masters Publicity, which specializes in children’s books and graphic novels, as account director. He was most recently publicity director for Workman and Artisan. In the UK, Vintage publishing director Rachel Cugnoni has been named […]
Scholastic's Plan to Trim Workforce
As part of their previously announced plan to reduce costs by $25 million to $30 million, Scholastic ceo Dick Robinson has written to employees to explain a four-part workforce reduction “which we believe is balanced and respectful to employees, retains as many jobs as possible, and reflects the spirit of Scholastic while meeting our financial requirements in a difficult economy.” The measures include a voluntary resignation offer for employees over 50 who have been with the company at least 10 years and are “considering retirement or other career options”; a freeze on new hires (openings will be filled from within […]
Brisingr Opening Day Sales
Random House Children’s announced first-day sales of 550,000 copies for Christopher Paolini’s BRISINGR, the biggest one-day sale ever for a book from the division. The publisher says that number is four times the opening day sale of Paolini’s previous title, ELDEST, in 2005. (That book was estimated to have sold 425,000 copies in the first week on sale.) President of RH Children’s Chip Gibson says in the announcement, “We are thrilled with the first day’s sale of BRISINGR: the numbers have far surpassed our projections. We are grateful to booksellers everywhere for this incredible success and look forward with them […]
That Only Took Years: Google Book Search Syndicates to Online Booksellers
Google is finally expanding making Book Search previews available to sites everywhere with simple embeddable code. Significantly, they say that Books-a-Million has already enabled Google Previews on their site, and “in the coming weeks retailers like Borders and Powell’s Books will enable this feature as well.” (It’s already enabled at Blackwell’s site, too, and other bookselling sites internationally.) Which means that “browse inside” functionality is now available to any bookseller (or other site) throughout the range of titles provided by Google’s publisher “partners.” As with books displayed through Book Search itself, users can browse up to 20 percent of a […]