Following the announced departure of Dutton publisher Ben Sevier to Grand Central, Penguin Publishing Group president Madeline McIntosh told staff today that deputy publisher Christine Ball is being promoted to senior vice president, publisher, Putnam Dutton Berkley, reporting to Ivan Held. Ball “will now work even more actively and directly with Ivan and the imprint editorial teams under him to shape the lists and the editorial strategy as a whole,” while continuing to oversee the marketing and publicity teams for all three imprints and lead efforts with the sales department. But Putnam editorial director Sally Kim, Berkley editor-in-chief Claire Zion, and associate publisher, paperbacks Ben Lee […]
Archives for January 2017
March Wins Four Awards at ALA
The American Library Association presented their annual book awards at their mid-winter meeting in Atlanta. First came the naming of the Carnegie Medalists on Sunday night, Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad and Matthew Desmond’s Evicted (the two consensus fiction and nonfiction books of the year in our annual aggregation as well). On Monday morning, at the Youth Media Awards ceremony, the National Book Award-winning graphic novel March: Book Three, written by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin, illustrated by Nate Powell (Top Shelf Productions/IDW) won four awards — the Michael L. Printz Award for young adult literature, the Excellence in Nonfiction award, the Coretta […]
Canada Reaches eBook Settlement with Apple and Three Publishers, Pursues HarperCollins
Canada’s Competition Bureau reached modest new consent agreements with Apple and three major publishers — Hachette, Macmillan and Simon & Schuster — related to the introduction of agency ebook pricing there. HarperCollins declined to settle, and the Commissioner of Competition is seeking harsher restrictions on the company’s ebook pricing as a result. Apple will drop all most favored nations clauses from their sales agreements with major ebook publishers (including Penguin Random House) for 3 years. The settling publishers agree to drop most favored nations clauses from their agreements with all ebooksellers in Canada for 3 years, and they will not “restrict, limit […]
People
Bloomsbury announced that chairman Anthony Salz will step down from his position and exit the board at the annual meeting in July, with a successor to be named later. As of March 1, managing director of IOP Publishing Steven Hall will join the company’s board and, as part of a regular rotation policy, Faber chief executive Stephen Page will leave the board after three years of service. Forthcoming Doubleday Children’s has acquired an unfinished fairy tale by Mark Twain that author Philip Stead and illustrator Erin Stead have expanded into a 152-page illustrated “storybook for all ages.” They will publish THE PURLOINING […]
Nielsen Sells US Bookscan and Related Services to NPD
Nielsen has sold the BookScan service in the US only, along with the related services that comprise Nielsen Book in the US (including PubTrack Digital and the Books & Consumers surveys) to NPD Group, based in Port Washington, Long Island, for undisclosed terms. Those services will comprise the new NPD Book practice group, adding to the company’s data services for over 20 industries. Nielsen Book worldwide svp and managing director Jonathan Stolper will serve as president of NPD Book, and the new owner has offered employment to all of the US-based commercial Nielsen Book employees. As part of the sale, Nielsen […]
Colting Sued by PRH, S&S, and Literary Estates Over ‘Kinderguides’ of Classic Novels
More than a decade after being sued over an unauthorized sequel to Catcher in the Rye, Fredrik Colting is the co-defendant in a new lawsuit over turning four classic novels into illustrated children’s books without permission. The complaint, filed in New York federal court Thursday by Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, and various literary estates, asserts that Colting and co-defendant Melissa Medina have infringed copyright on Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote, The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, On the Road by Jack Kerouac, and 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke. The plaintiffs assert in their 42-page […]