Former Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette, whose 2012 book NO EASY DAY (published under the pseudonym Mark Owen) disclosed details of the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden and who is set to publish a new book, NO HERO, under the same pen name on November 10, is under criminal investigation from the Department of Justice for allegedly revealing classified material, his lawyer and federal officials told the NYT. Bissonnette’s lawyer Robert Luskin believes the investigation stems from the book itself, even after “he thought he had reached an agreement in the spring with Justice Department and Pentagon officials to settle […]
Archives for October 2014
People
At the Random House Publishing Group, Annette Melvin has been promoted to director, creative services. Countryman Press announced a number of new hires and promotions. Ann Treistman has been promoted to editorial director. Dan Crissman has joined as senior editor. Previously, he was senior editor at Overlook. Finally, Devorah Backman has been hired as publicity and marketing associate. She was previously at Weinstein Books. Nathalie Le Du has joined Workman Publishing as a senior editor in the children’s group, overseeing the workbooks and activity books program (including Brain Quest and Star Wars Workbooks). She was most recently an editor at Kumon Workbooks. […]
Bonnier Acquires UK’s Igloo Books
In the UK, Bonnier Publishing has acquired Igloo Books on undisclosed terms, adding £30 million in annual sales to create a group with £85 million in sales focused on children’s books and adult fiction. The company says it will make them “one of the five largest children’s publishers in the UK, and the dominant force in children’s mass market publishing.” Parent company Bonnier Books is said to have annual revenue of £600 million. Igloo Books ceo John Styring and the full management team will remain in place, and the unit will continue to operate from their Northamptonshire offices. “The deal […]
PW’s Top 10 Books
PW published their annual list of the 10 best books of the year, a selection that includes three works in translation: Nonfiction On Immunity: An Inoculation, Eula Biss (Graywolf) Thirteen Days in September: Carter, Begin, and Sadat at Camp David, Lawrence Wright (Knopf) Limonov, Emmanuel Carrère, trans. by John Lambert (Farrar, Straus) The Empathy Exams, Leslie Jamison (Graywolf) Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free Héctor Tobar (Farrar, Straus) Fiction The Corpse Exhibition, Hassan Blasim, trans. by Jonathan Wright (Penguin) Those Who Leave and Those Who […]
New Google Play Features Aim to Improve Nonfiction eBook
On Thursday morning Google Play Books introduced an update to their reading app providing “a redesigned reading experience that’s optimized for nonfiction books” with feature improvements meant “to solve the ever more challenging reference book” in digital form. Their new “skim mode” makes it easier to skim across an entire book (recommending for reference works from cookbooks to travel guides). And “quick bookmarks” let you flag and navigate back and forth between multiple spots in a book. For students, the new features also make it easier to find and refer back to highlighted text passages and personal notes. Since we’re […]
Blurb to Launch Recommendations for Independent Publishing Experts
In a little over a week, on November 7, self-publishing platform Blurb will go live with a programmatic answer to one of their most persistent customer requests: Recommendations for freelance publishing professionals. Known as the Dream Team, to be featured under a “Hire an expert” navigational tab on their site, Blurb will start with a recommended set of 50 independent publishing professionals to help creators complete, polish and publish their books. The first phase focuses on the creation process: developmental editors, copy editors, illustrators, proofreaders, and designers. A second phase, still in development, will incorporate the business process: publicists, marketers, […]