The government has finally stopped punishing the Penguin Group for NO EASY DAY and has truly cleared General Stanley McChrystal‘s book MY SHARE OF THE TASK for publication. They’ll miss the holiday period, and the book will publish January 7. Otherwise, it’s safe to assume that anyone with a book on General David Petraeus has moved up their planned publication date by a couple of weeks. Also just announced for the beginning of the year is Lawrence Wright‘s long-awaited book on the Church of Scientology, GOING CLEAR: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief. Knopf will publish on January 17.
Archives for November 2012
Unlocking More Titles for Digital
The theme of today’s enews reports is clear: a variety of initiatives to get more material into digital form in a variety of ways: Two multi-volume deals with Audible were announced yesterday. Digital publisher Diversion Books will see “the majority” of their backlist and new titles going forward turned into audiobooks, available on Audible starting this winter. Diversion says they are publishing 100 titles a year. Separately, Audible is also working with UK literary agency AP Watt to produce audiobook versions of the backlists of seven well-known authors: Somerset Maugham, Nevil Shute, Robert Graves, Rafael Sabatini, P M Hubbard, Ronald […]
Favorites Erdrich, Boo, Win National Book Awards
The National Book Awards were presented Wednesday evening at Cipriani Wall Street. In keeping with the awards’ recognition of writers with a broad audience and larger reach, favorites Louise Erdrich and Katherine Boo won in the fiction and nonfiction categories. Accepting the nonfiction award for Behind The Beautiful Forevers, Boo said that if the prize were to mean anything, “it is that small stories in so-called hidden places matter because they implicate and complicate what we consider to be the larger story, which is the story of people who do […]
A Look At Tonight’s National Book Award Field
Predicting (or speculating on) who will win tonight’s National Book Awards is harder than usual, as the awards themselves are headed towards a process that will have broader resonance with readers. In past years, particularly for fiction, commercial success was often a deficit more than an advantage, but that may no longer apply. Among the fiction nominees, Nielsen Bookscan print sales data confirms Junot Diaz’s book as the most successful title in the marketplace, though a win for Diaz would make him the first person to win for a book of stories since Andrea Barrett’s 1996 award for Ship Fever and […]
Bookselling: That Bookstore in Blytheville Finds New Buyer; WHSmith High Street Comps Drop 5 Percent
Arkansas-based independent That Bookstore in Blytheville, which looked like it was going to close this week, has found a new buyer, Arkansas Business reports. Grant Hill told the paper he was “working with Southern Bancorp and the Greater Blytheville Area Chamber of Commerce to secure the $35,000 needed to buy the business” from owner Mary Gay Shipley, who put the store up for sale in February. Shipley confirmed the purchase, saying “We are getting to a contract and hope to be able to make an announcement soon.” In the UK, WHSmith said in a brief update that high street sales […]
People, Awards, Etc.
At Abrams, publisher Steve Tager takes on the new role of chief marketing and business development officer, focused on driving new business initiatives, including exploiting company’s digital assets. The marketing and publicity departments will also report to him. Deborah Aaronson takes over as vp, publisher for the adult trade group. She has been with the company since 2000. Elisa Urbanelli returns to the company as associate publisher for the adult group, also acquiring in categories including art and museum publications. She was previously a managing editor for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and most recently was a freelance […]