Penguin Publishing Group president Madeline McIntosh has closed another of the group’s publishing lines, writing to staff that she had “made the difficult decision to discontinue Blue Rider Press as a standalone imprint.” President and publisher David Rosenthal, who came to Penguin in early 2011 to create the imprint, and associate publisher Aileen Boyle, who joined Rosenthal after a few months to help build the line, are both “leaving the company in the coming months.” Current and forthcoming Blue Rider titles will be published by Dutton, which was combined with other lines and made part of Putnam Dutton in early […]
Archives for June 2017
People, Etc.
Germany’s S. Fischer has hired Siv Bublitz as publishing director, effective September 18, taking over from Peter Sillem, who is leaving S. Fischer on June 30. Bublitz was previously chief executive at Ullstein. Reporting to S. Fischer president and publisher Jörg Bong, she will join the board of Holtzbrinck Publishers Germany. As managing director for program and strategy, Bublitz will be responsible for publishing divisions S. Fischer, Fischer Scherz, Fischer Krüger, Fischer FJB, Fischer Tor and Fischer Taschenbuch. Dr. Bong says in the announcement, “Siv Bublitz has the highest reputation on the international book market as well as many years of […]
Yes, Mbue’s Behold the Dreamers Is New Oprah Pick
As suggested here earlier in the month by booksellers, a just-published paperback edition of Imbolo Mbue’s debut novel Behold the Dreamers is the latest “summer” pick for Oprah’s Book Club. Winfrey declares — in another videotaped announcement first posted at Amazon, which continues its undeclared/undefined but clearly official and close relationship with Winfrey — “It’s about race and class, the economy, culture, immigration and the danger of the us versus them mentality. And underneath it all pumps the heart and soul of family love, the pursuit of happiness and what home really means.” The official press release touts Amazon alone […]
Briefs: Bookselling and More
Bookselling A couple of weeks ago Book Expo announced a preliminary count of 7,425 attendees at the mots recent, saying the group was “comprised primarily of booksellers, librarians, retailers and media.” But a new infographic from the show provides a more precise count of 1,289 booksellers & retailers, and 1,597 librarians in attendance. We asked about the composition of the remaining 4,414 attendees tabulated, which included 860 press registrants, and who came from “various categories including Distributors, Educators, Film & TV Professionals, Licensing Professionals, Literary Agents and Wholesalers among others.” The show spokesperson says they will provide further details once the […]
Blended Statistics Part 4: A Broader View of What Authors Earn
Part 3 looked at the whole industry and laid important groundwork for roughing out a new measure: how much money do authors earn? The Author Earnings project has made valuable strides in making this a central issue. Up until AE, no one had even tried to tabulate what authors make in the aggregate, and their consistent perspective has been to focus on how much money authors — and self-published authors in particular — might be making, regardless of how they are making it (e.g. subscription reads, borrows and exclusive payoffs alongside royalties, etc.) It’s clear from AE’s work, no matter […]
Legal: Elsevier Prevails Over Sci-Hub; Textbook Publishers Sue Follett for “Trafficking In Counterfeit Textbooks”
On Tuesday, a Federal court for the Southern District of New York entered a default judgment in favor of Elsevier in their infringement suit against Sci-Hub, the Library Genesis Project, and other websites, accused of “compromising some 51 million protected works.” The court award the maximum damages of $15 million, and made permanent a 2015 preliminary injunction requiring the suspension of the defendants U.S.-administered domain names. Separately, also on Tuesday in the same jurisdiction, Cengage, McGraw-Hill and Pearson filed suit against Follett, charging the college bookstore operator with knowingly “trafficking in counterfeit textbooks” at scale. They allege that, “Defendants regularly look to unknown […]