Updating our National Book Awards coverage from Thursday, Bloomsbury upped its reprint order for fiction winner SALVAGE THE BONES by Jesmyn Ward to 50,000 copies, while Norton told us a reprint for nonfiction winner SWERVE by Stephen Greenblatt was “already underway” and will now comprise approximately 50,000 copies as well. The National Endowment for the Arts have awarded their 2012 literature fellowships in creative writing, with Eula Biss, Tayari Jones, Joseph O’Neill, Jennifer Haigh, and Benjamin Percy among the recipients of the $25,000 grants. Full list N+1 editor and novelist Keith Gessen was among those arrested as part of yesterday’s […]
Archives for November 2011
Upgrade Boosts Barnes & Noble Again
At yesterday’s presentation at Liberty Media’s annual meeting, Barnes & Noble’s William Lynch basically repeated the market predictions and assessments that he’s been making to anyone who would listen. It was an afternoon upgrade from Stifel Niclaus that sent the company’s stock soaring again in early afternoon trading yesterday. Analyst David Schick is coming to believe the company’s contention that it is turning into a technology company, and he set a price target of $25 a share (or 50 percent above current levels). As we suggested earlier, Rakuten’s valuation of Kobo implies that Barnes & Noble’s Nook business should be […]
International: Ediciones B, Planeta Launch Digital Imprints; and More
Spanish publisher Ediciones B launched a new digital imprint, B de Books, where the house will publish e-originals and ebook editions of its trade titles DRM-free, some at prices that are aggressively low for the Spanish market. Patricia Cornwell’s THE SCARPETTA FACTOR was available at launch for €1.99, and John Locke’s LETHAL PEOPLE will be released in January at €2.99. Commenting on the decision to publish DRM-free, B de Books director Ernest Folch said DRM had become a “barrier to readers” and is ineffective, since “DRM-protected titles are pirated the minute they hit the market.” El Cultural (in Spanish) Meanwhile Planeta […]
Obreht and Otsuka Are Winners On Library Journal’s Top 10 List
Library Journal announced their top ten books of 2011, the consensus picks of their review editors. The list includes two of the NBA fiction finalists: Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty by Andrew Bolton and others (text) & Sølve Sundsbø (photogs.) (Metropolitan Museum of Art) Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War by Tony Horwitz (Holt) Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones (Algonquin) 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami (Knopf) The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht (Random) The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka (Knopf) The Tragedy of Arthur by Arthur Phillips (Random) The Better Angels of Our Nature: […]
Shakely to Step Down; Krauss Will Return to Potter As Publisher
Publisher of Clarkson Potter since 2002 Lauren Shakely will step down from her positions as of the end of December. Pam Krauss, currently publishing director for Rodale Books, will return to Potter–where she worked for over 20 years until moving to Rodale in 2008–as the new publisher, starting next January. Shakely, who as senior vice president was also publisher of Potter Craft, Potter Style, and Watson-Guptill, is praised by Crown president Maya Mavjee as “the driving force behind the phenomenal success of Clarkson Potter and its associated imprints…renowned throughout our industry and beyond for her impeccable good taste, astute judgment, […]
eNews: Smashwords Adds Management for Agents
Smashwords has adjusted their system to make it easier for literary agents to use the ebook distribution service. Their system now recognizes and allows agents to upload and manage clients’ titles as an authorized third party. (Up until now, the Smashwords paradigm made the uploader the “publisher,” a relationship that many agents did not want to accept.) In the new arrangement, agents can upload titles that will credit the author as the “publisher” and list the agency with an appropriate credit line in the metadata stream. Agents sign-up for a regular Smashwords account and then “upgrade” to Agent status. A […]