Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka won the overall Commonwealth book prize for his debut novel–published as CHINAMAN in the UK, and issued last month by Graywolf in the US under the subtitle, THE LEGEND OF PRADEEP MATHEW. The Association of American Publishers (AAP) gave its Mary McNulty Award for Lifetime Service to Educational Publishing Award to svp of Pearson School Paul McFall. AAP president Tom Allen said, “Paul has been a tireless advocate for the US school publishing industry as well as the students and teachers we serve.” Husband of the late Clara Heyworth, Verso Books managing director Jacob Stevens […]
Archives for June 2012
Google Settles French Scanning Lawsuits; Creates Commercial Model for Out-of-Print Access
Google Books has achieved in France what the company has been unable to do in the US: They have settled the remaining lawsuits over their book scanning with the French Publishers Association (Syndicat national de l’édition) and the French Author’s Association (Société des gens de lettres) and instituted a commercial arrangement for selling access to out-of-print books that Google has scanned. Strategic Partner Development Manager of Google Books France Philippe Colombet says the new “partnerships…will put France ahead of the rest of the world in bringing long lost out-of-print works back to life. From now, publishers will promote and commercialize […]
The Streams of BEA
BEA show director Steve Rosato reported very preliminary convention attendances numbers on his blog Thursday afternoon in, while arguing that “BEA is what it is.” As he explains, the basic “numbers are a given–the question will only be if we are up a few percent or down a few percent” and the numbers matter less than “the books discovered or the new contacts made.” Indeed, the show has more or less found its level over the past few years, and seems to consistently draw the same basic audience, with modest year-to-year fluctuations. The early count had almost exactly the same […]
Bradbury Backlist Will Be Digitized
William Morrow editor Jennifer Brehl tells Paid Content that the publisher has been at work on the “huge undertaking” of making the late Ray Bradbury’s backlist available as ebooks. “He knew we were going to do this” and had “agreed to it,” she says, adding, “I don’t want people to think he was this dinosaur because he had some opinions” about ebooks that changed late in his life. One of Bradbury’s concerns–library availability–never changed, and she pledges that the Bradbury ebooks will be available for library lending. Apparently part of his agreement reached last year to allow an ebook edition […]
People: Buzz Waterhouse Named President and CEO of McGraw-Hill Education
As part of McGraw-Hill Education’s ongoing spinoff from the main company, the division has a new president and ceo in Lloyd G. “Buzz” Waterhouse as of June 14, reporting to company president, ceo and chairman Terry McGraw. Waterhouse was previously ceo of Harcourt Education and most recently served as a director of a number of companies including SolarWinds, ITT Educational Services and Ascend Learning. “Buzz is a superb choice to lead the world-class franchise we’ve built in McGraw-Hill Education,” McGraw said in a statement. “Buzz’s exceptional record of leadership, his qualifications in the education sector, substantial international credentials, significant experience […]
At BEA, Chabon Describes His Portrait of “Lost Utopia”
The Thursday morning BEA breakfast featured authors Zadie Smith, J.R. Moehringer and a personal favorite, admitted “total nerd” Michael Chabon. Kirstie Alley hosted, and Jimmy Fallon provided a quick hello and book plug at the beginning. He read from his second volume of wry Thank You Notes, closing with: “Thank you, Kindle, for being able to hold over 1,400 books, but never being as good as being able to hold the real thing in my hands, you son-of-a-b–ch.” Chabon offered his “first attempt” at trying to explain how he came to write his forthcoming TELEGRAPH AVENUE, after admitting that his “truest […]