Remember the confusion when a company called Spring Design announce their “Alex” dual-screen ereader the day before Barnes & Noble unveiled nook and people wondered if the two companies had worked together? Now Spring Design says they have sued BN, alleging that the retailer “misappropriated trade secrets and violated the parties’ non-disclosure agreement when it copied Alex’ features” for nook. VP of sales and marketing Eric Kmiec says, “We showed the Alex e-book design to Barnes & Noble in good faith with the intention of working together to provide a superior dual screen e-book to the market.” The company recounts […]
Archives for November 2009
People: Former Morrow Publisher Gallagher Joins Sanford Greenburger
Former publisher of William Morrow Lisa Gallagher is joining Sanford Greenburger Associates as an agent. She notes, “I want to apply my extensive marketing experience to help bring writers and their work to the widest possible audience across various media and formats.” Heide Lange at SJGA adds, “Lisa is that rare publishing professional whose talents include strong editorial insight, marketing expertise, and keen business sense. In other agency news, Dystel & Goderich Literary Management is opening a second office in Los Angeles in December, to be run by agency vp Michael Bourret, who has been at DGLM for 10 years. […]
McIntosh Returns to Random House to Run Sales and More
After a brief excursion to Amazon’s European office (where she has been director of Kindle content acquisition for Europe), Madeline McIntosh is returning to Random House Inc. to take the new position of president, sales, operations and digital, reporting to ceo Markus Dohle. He writes: “Unifying our physical and digital sales efforts for our adult, children’s, and international titles, distribution, publishing operations, IT, and our corporate digital-publishing capabilities in an interconnected team under a single leader is a key step in building our future success.” Starting December 1, McIntosh’s reports will include svp Operations & Technology Andrew Weber; svp, director […]
Lunch Weekly for Monday, November 2
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 Iowa MFA Lise Saffran’s THE GREEN WORLD, involving a divorced mother […]
Dyssegaard New Hyperion EIC and More People News
Executive Editor of Smithsonian Books Elisabeth Dyssegaard will join Hyperion as editor-in-chief on November 16, reporting to Ellen Archer. Archer says in the announcement, “Given Elisabeth’s history of acquiring terrific fiction and narrative nonfiction, and her ability to collaborate with offsite partners, she’s a perfect fit for Hyperion and our multi-platform publishing program.” Dyssegaard adds, “I love the wide-ranging nature of the list and own food-spattered copies of most of the cookbooks. I have long admired the company’s ability to make bestsellers, and I look forward to working with such a dynamic and enormously talented team.” TechCrunch reports that an […]
Lists and Awards
Amazon has posted their “best of 2009 books” section, which includes their editors’ top 10 (below) and top 100 lists, along with top 10s for more than 20 genres, “customer favorites” (e.g. category bestsellers), and more: 1. Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann2. Strength in What Remains, Tracy Kidder3. Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel4. Brooklyn, Colm Toibin5. Beautiful Creatures, Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl6. Crazy for the Storm, Norman Ollestad7. The Girl Who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson8. The City & the City, China Mieville9. Stitches, David Small 10. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, William Kamkwamba Best of 2009 […]