Caroline Sutton has been named Editor-in-Chief of Hudson Street Press, effective May 4. Previously she was an Executive Editor with Collins. At Wiley, svp international development Stephen Smith has been promoted to chief operating officer, effective May 1. He will be “responsible for the overall direction and leadership of the Wiley’s global publishing business,” reporting to CEO William Pesce, and will relocate to the company’s Hoboken headquarters. Guy Raphael, senior non-fiction buyer at Borders UK, is leaving the company just weeks after being promoted to his current position. At Inner Traditions, Bear & Co., John Hays has been appointed Director […]
Archives for March 2009
Yale and Other University Presses Face Dropping Sales
The Yale Daily News says that press YUP director Jon Donatich reports sales over the past year have been down 7 to 8 percent. “Our books are working,” Donatich said. “But the marketplace is very soft.” They are looking at shorter print runs and “an expanded digital platform.” The AAUP confirms that 62 university presses surveyed reported an average drop in sales of 10 percent over the second half of 2008. Director of the University of Pennsylvania Press Eric Halpern confirms their sales are down about 10 percent, too.YDN In related news, nearly half of the 120 print jobs proposed […]
Another eBook Lawsuit–This Time Against Apple
Apple has been sued in a Virginia-based Federal Court for patent infringement over ebook uses of the iPhone and iPod Touch by Swiss company Monec Holding. The company says it has a 2002 patent titled “Electronic device, preferably an electronic book” that covers “a general electronic device with a housing, display, input means, microprocessors, controls and interfaces for data exchange with peripherals” and a “preferably provided” touchscreeen that “has dimensions such that with it approximately one page of a book can be illustrated at normal size.” The filing says that “Apple makes books and book applications accessible through Wi-Fi and […]
Report Cites Book Trade's "Exclusionary" Tactics Towards 20m Readers
A report due out this week from research conducted by HarperCollins, the Trade Publishers Council and the National Year of Reading (NYR) says the book trade is “too intimidating” towards the C2DE socio-economic group, characterized as lower income, non-professional families. The report found that many families in this group, numbering up to 20 million, found books to be “alien and unattractive” while reading was considered “an anti-social activity for people who don’t know how to live.” NYR project director Honor Wilson-Fletcher said: “These are good solid families who don’t have literacy problems but who just don’t read. They are one […]
FiledByAuthor Launches Public Beta
After spending a number of months in private pre-beta, FiledByAuthor has moved into public beta format. The site, which aims to be “the first large-scale author-centric promotional platform to provide every author that has been published in the U.S. or Canada a free, hosted, ecommerce enabled web page,” has more than 1.8 million pre-assembled author web pages and over 7 million book titles. “All authors, regardless of publishing category are encouraged to visit the site, claim their page, make corrections, and enrich them in a variety of ways,” said Founder, President & C.E.O. Peter Clifton in the accompanying release. FiledByAuthor
People and Announcements
Stacia Decker and Danielle Chiotti have joined Firebrand Literary as agents. Decker was previously an editor at Harcourt; Chiotti was formerly a senior editor at Kensington. Faber & Faber have appointed Mary Cannam and Jason Cooper have been appointed to the executive board At Crown, Courtney Greenhalgh has been promoted to Publicity Manager and Emily Lavelle has been promoted to Associate Publicist. Houston Chronicle books editor Fritz Lanham was among those laid off from the newspaper earlier this week. Marcus Lutrell and Dexter Filkins have both won the 2009 Colby Award, recognizing a first work of fiction or non-fiction “that […]