Random House UK ceo Gail Rebuck was made a Dame on the Queen’s Birthday Honors List (her husband is already a Lord).
In annual income disclosures, Senator Ted Kennedy reported that he was paid $2 million as an advance (presumably only the first part) for his memoir in 2008. (The full price was reportedly about $8 million.)
This week’s New Yorker profiles Nora Roberts, “America’s most popular novelist”–whom the magazine explains to its readers is like “the Raymond Carver of romance,” at least in her “choice of milieu.” (They note that the Times Book Review has reviewed just one of her books.)
They say that in 2008, Penguin shipped 8 million copies of new books by Roberts, along with 5.5 million copies of Roberts’ backlist and 4.5 million copies of books under her pen name J.D. Robb. At Barnes & Noble, Roberts is the top romance writer and Robb is second only to Janet Evanovich.
Jeffrey Archer has rewritten his bestselling novel KANE AND ABEL, which Macmillan UK will republish this fall. He says, “I added some 24,700 words to the original manuscript. But the final copy ended up 7,000 words shorter than the first edition. So I think it’s better crafted now after 30 years of writing. But the plot remains the same.”
Telegraph
CEO and owner of Whole Person Associates Carlene Sippola will take over as president of the Independent Book Publishers Association’s board of directors.