Robin Wolfson has been named to the new position of vp, Random House Speakers Bureau, assuming central leadership of the five-year-old division, which has been managed in decentralized fashion up until now, with multiple divisional directors for the company’s different publishing groups. Wolfson’s primary responsibilities are strategic oversight and business development; those divisional directors will continue to report within their groups. Pete Beatty will join Open Road on May 28 as acquisitions director, reporting to Tina Pohlman. He was senior editor at Bloomsbury Press. Beatty is taking over for Stephanie Gorton, who is leaving to pursue a creative nonfiction MFA and will continue […]
Archives for May 2013
Bookselling: Fundraising Campaign for BookCourt North; New Children’s Bookstore in Edgewater, MD; and More
BookCourt in Brooklyn has launched a fundraising campaign on Indiegogo to buy the Bibliobarn in the Catskills and rename it BookCourt North: Bookshop, Event Space, and Writers’ Retreat. Should they raise the $300,000 needed to buy and renovate the Bibliobarn, which opened for business in 1996, BookCourt would convert the second floor into a writers’ retreat, host events on within the barn and on the five acres of land surrounding it, and possibly open a cafe. Current owners H.L & Linda Wilson put the property for sale and hope to move to a nearby Catskills town. Children’s bookstore Edgewater Books […]
Awards and More
Benjamin Alire Saenz, 58, became the first Latino writer to win the PEN/Faulkner Fiction Prize on Saturday, for EVERYTHING BEGINS AND ENDS AT THE KENTUCKY CLUB. Published by Cinco Puntos, it’s a collection of seven loosely linked stories. After putting Charlie Lovett‘s forthcoming THE BOOKMAN’S TALE: A Novel of Obsession on their Best Books of May list last week, now Barnes & Noble has made the book their latest B&N Recommends selection. HCI’s former licensing and subsidiary rights director Christian Blonshine has been named executive vice president. Brenda Knight has moved up to publisher of both Cleis Press and Viva […]
Harper Lee Sues to Recover Money from Fired Agent, In Latest Battle Over Pinkus’s Split with McIntosh & Otis
As was widely (if not always accurately) reported over the weekend, Harper Lee filed suit on May 2 in New York Federal Bankruptcy Court to recover royalties for TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD allegedly still being collected improperly by Sam Pinkus. She seeks all commissions collected by Pinkus since 2007, plus compensatory damages. In a less publicized case, last year a New York State court re-established Lee as owner of the copyright of her famous novel and ordered Pinkus removed as her agent. In the new filing, however, Lee charges that Pinkus is “still receiving royalties from the novel as of this […]
Sourcebooks and OverDrive In Free eBook Library Pilot
In a new type of library discovery case study, Sourcebooks and OverDrive are working together to offer Michael Malone’s novel FOUR CORNERS OF THE SKY available for free to library patrons in hundreds of countries for 18 days, beginning May 15. They are calling it the “Big Library Read.” The objective is to accumulate data to quantify the effects of library support on sales and discovery in a variety of ways. In particular, Sourcebooks is looking to see if the special promotion drives strong and sustainable checkouts; if that carries over to the author’s other books; and if it results […]
Nook Adds Google Apps; Has Sold 10 Million Devices
After more disappointing device sales over the 2012 holidays, Barnes & Noble ceo William Lynch promised investors “we’re not going to continue doing what we’re doing; we’re doing to adjust quickly.” At the time, Lynch also noted the company had concluded that “larger technology brands have more resonance in that multifunction tablet world than we do.” So the company has announced a linkage with another big technology brand — Google — which lets the Nook HD tablets serve as Google tablets, too. Through apps they are adding the Google Play media experience, as well as “popular Google services like the […]