Nobel Prize-winning author Günter Grass, 87, died in hospital in Lübeck, Germany. He was the author of THE TIN DRUM (1959) and other novels, in addition to being a poet, dramatist, sculptor, and the speechwriter for German chancellor Willy Brandt. Grass received his Nobel Prize in 1999. Uruguayan writer and journalist Eduardo Galeano, 74, died Monday morning in Montevideo. His published books included OPEN VEINS OF LATIN AMERICA (1971), MEMORY OF FIRE (1986) and most recently, CHILDREN OF THE DAYS (2012). President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle reported more than $477,000 in income according to their annual tax return, […]
Archives for April 2015
Partnerships: Nielsen Collaborates With China’s Openbook; and More
Nielsen has signed a collaboration agreement with Openbook, the largest Chinese book retail tracking service provider, in which both companies will share and provide information to one another in both the US and Chinese markets. Openbook will publish weekly overall and genre-specific US and UK book sales charts, as well as US and UK rights contact information, while Nielsen will Nielsen introduce Openbook’s research services, including the English translations of the 2014 China Market report, to Nielsen clients around the world. Nielsen Book president Jonathan Nowell said in the announcement: “I am delighted to be working with Mrs Jiang and […]
Fiction Deals Soft Heading Into London Book Fair
With the London Book Fair convening as of next Tuesday, it’s time for our regular analysis of dealmaking patterns in advance of the big international rights show. As usual, the last few days of results can have some effect on our final stats so we’ll be back on Monday with more definitive counts. (We’ve already posted 189 deals since Monday morning, with more to add to our site.) But the initial graphs surveying the five weeks leading up to LBF (starting March 7) show two clear trends. In domestic (US) deals, despite a significant surge in nonfiction reports, overall dealmaking […]
Amazon Sues Over “Inauthentic” Reviews
Online retailers have been consistently plagued by those who post product reviews for a fee, and some, like Amazon, are clear in declaring that this practice violates their terms of service. Now Amazon is going a step further, filing its first-ever complaint in Washington state court earlier this week. The defendants are Jay Gentile as well as “John Does” running several websites, and Amazon is accusing them of “trademark infringement, false advertising and violations of the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act and the Washington Consumer Protection Act” through the creation of websites that offer to sell verified Amazon reviews from between $19 and $22 […]
Novik’s Uprooted Tops May Library Reads List
Uprooted by Naomi Novik is the No. 1 pick for the May Library Reads list. The list also includes The Water Knife by Paolo Baciagalupi as well as Seveneves by Neal Stephenson, excerpts of which you can start reading right now in our Buzz Books 2015: Spring/Summer ebook. The rest of the list includes: A Court of Thorns and Roses, by Sarah J. Maas (Bloomsbury) A God in Ruins, by Kate Atkinson (Little, Brown) The Knockoff, by Lucy Sykes & Jo Piazza (Doubleday) Early Warning, by Jane Smiley (Knopf) The Ghost Fields, by Elly Griffiths (HMH) Our Souls at Night, […]
Faber to Launch US Line in 2016 with PGW and Perseus
Following Faber and Faber’s termination of their US publishing partnership with FSG in February, the company has announced plans to launch their directly-published new US line in spring 2016, distributed by PGW. Faber intends to publish 60 new titles a year in the US, along with issuing a backlist of over 1,000 titles. The company will “hire dedicated marketing and publicity resources” to support the new program, co-locating those new hires with the Perseus Books Group. Faber ceo Stephen Page says in the announcement, “What we are building is a marketing and selling model for publishers with no editorial resource […]