Book Industry Study Group executive director Scott Lubeck is leaving his position “for personal reasons” and will return to his home in Austin, TX. Lubeck took over at the BISG in January 2010. Deputy Executive Director Angela Bole will fulfill the functions of the executive director on an interim basis, and a search committee has been formed and will work with Bert Davis & Associates to look for a replacement to lead the organization.
Archives for May 2011
When Anything Can Be A “Book,” Anything Is A Book–At Least 3.1 Million In 2010 Alone
It’s time for the reporting of annual publishing statistics and as usual, the most profound numbers for us are the unreported ones. The bigger and more technologically-fueled book publishing gets, the less we actually know about the universe in which we all work. It all comes back to the metadata mess, in which many newer players do not use standard identifiers at all for their books, and even traditional players have not agreed on a single practice. The “known universe” clearly continues to expand, and we infer that the darker “unknown universe” is doing the same. Today, Bowker’s Books In […]
Len Riggio Will Depart GameStop Board
Barnes & Noble chairman Len Riggio “has decided not to stand for re-election” to the board of directors of GameStop, the company noted in a recent SEC filing. Gamestop says that in fiscal 2010 “medical reasons prevented [Riggio’s] attendance” at a minimum of 75 percent of the board meetings, missing five of 12 meetings in all. “The company said two of those meetings were stacked around the time Riggio had what Barnes & Noble described as a minor medical procedure.” Barnes & Noble indicates Riggio missed the other meetings due to conflicting commitments to other boards. Riggio has been progressively […]
Authors: Roth Wins Man Booker International, with Controversy; Nesbo Opening Week Sales; and More
Knopf has been positioning Jo Nesbo‘s THE SNOWMAN as its big summer thriller breakout, and they report selling 20,000 total copies so far of the May 10 release – with digital making up as much as 65 percent, at 13,000 units sold. Since every media outlet under the sun has wondered whether Nesbo is “the next Stieg Larsson,” it’s worth noting that THE SNOWMAN exceeded sales of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO by 2,000 units during the same time frame. “The Larsson comp is significant because it demonstrates how much shift there has been in our business in under […]
eNews: Amazon Launches Mystery/Thriller Imprint; Tyndale Launches Digital Imprint; Atwood Tries Again
As expected, Amazon has announced another publishing line, for mysteries and thrillers. Thomas & Mercer (named for streets that flank the company’s Seattle headquarters) is Amazon’s fifth imprint and will launch this fall with four titles by Kyle Mills, D.M. Annechino, John Rector and Blake Crouch co-writing with J.A. Konrath. The release also appears to confirm Victoria Griffith as publisher of all of Amazon’s in-house imprints. Release Tyndale House is launching a Digital First imprint that does just what the name proclaims: publish ebook originals. They will launch with in July with four inspirational novels and one work of nonfiction. […]
The Buzz That Was
Part of our BEA coverage every year is to look back at the “Buzz Books” selection from the prior year to see how they fared in the marketplace. That’s more complicated now that frontlist titles, particularly fiction, are selling so strongly in ebook editions. But the print sales numbers from Nielsen BookScan still tell a pretty clear story on their own. Last year’s general Buzz panel featured at least two books that were recognized major works of the year–Emma Donoghue’s multiple-award-winning novel (which ranked No. 2 on our own Best of the Best of 2010 Fiction list), and Siddhartha Mukherjee’s […]