Amazon reported strong third quarter sales on Thursday evening, with net sales excluding the recently-acquired Whole Foods and foreign exchange gains growing 29 percent. That coupled with a strong fourth quarter sales forecast means Wall Street doesn’t care about the paltry earnings again, driving the stock to a new all-time high in early Friday trading, trading at over $1,070 a share within the first 30 minutes, up over 10 percent. As noted previously, the company stopped reporting any useful metrics related to their media businesses earlier this year (as Apple appeared to surpass them). With the acquisition of Whole Foods, […]
Archives for October 2017
Best Books of the Year Season Begins
Per tradition, PW and Canada’s Indigo start early with their picks for the 10 best books of the year: PW White Tears, Hari Kunzru (Knopf) Ill Will, Dan Chaon (Ballantine) In the Distance, Hernán Díaz (Coffee House) Grief Cottage, Gail Godwin (Bloomsbury) Sing, Unburied, Sing, Jesmyn Ward (Scribner) Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India, Sujatha Gidla (FSG) The Apparitionists: A Tale of Phantoms, Fraud, Photography, and the Man Who Captured Lincoln’s Ghost, Peter Manseau (HMH) The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, Richard Rothstein (Liveright) Extreme Cities: The Perils […]
Penguin Press Cancels Halperin Book
Thursday evening Penguin Press announced it will cancel the book due for publication next spring from Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, the third in their Game Change series. The publisher said in a brief statement: “In light of the recent news regarding Mark Halperin, the Penguin Press has decided to cancel our plans to publish a book he was co-authoring on the 2016 election.” Penguin Press’s announcement came after HBO said they were “no longer proceeding with” a planned production based on the forthcoming book. “HBO has no tolerance for sexual harassment within the company or its productions,” the network […]
William Morris Endeavor to Drop Bill O’Reilly
Bill O’Reilly’s longtime book agent Eric Simonoff at William Morris Endeavor is dropping the former broadcaster for future literary representation. A WME spokesperson told CNN the agency will “no longer represent Bill O’Reilly for future deals.” They noted, “It is our fiduciary responsibility to service the existing deals we have under contract, but we will not be working with him moving forward.” The AP reports that O’Reilly still has at least one more Killing book under contract with publisher Henry Holt. On Monday O’Reilly’s longtime television agent at United Talent Agency said that they would drop him as a client at […]
People: Lee Boudreaux Leaves Imprint for Doubleday
A little less than two years after books from her eponymous imprint starting coming to market, Lee Boudreaux will leave Little, Brown to join Doubleday as vice president and executive editor, reporting to Bill Thomas, starting November 13. From our deal reports we count at least eight titles signed to Lee Boudreaux Books that have not been published yet, all of which will be assigned to new editors and issued by Little, Brown. Little, Brown publisher Reagan Arthur writes, “Lee has been a really great colleague and we loved having her here. A lot! But she decided she needed to make a change.” […]
Broadcaster — and Bestselling Author — Mark Halperin Apologizes Following Harassment Accusations
Five women shared previously undisclosed accusations of sexual harassment against political journalist Mark Halperin with CNN, related to when he was political director at ABC News. Halperin told CNN Wednesday night, “During this period, I did pursue relationships with women that I worked with, including some junior to me. I now understand from these accounts that my behavior was inappropriate and caused others pain. For that, I am deeply sorry and I apologize. Under the circumstances, I’m going to take a step back from my day-to-day work while I properly deal with this situation.” The accusations go well beyond pursuing relationships. […]