Like most Americans, publishing people are trying to understand the implications of the complicated new tax law. For many that will be a long and complicated process, and since the new law applies to tax from 2018 on, there is no rush for answers. But a few items jump out immediately. One is a false concern, crystallized in a NYT column from earlier in the week that noted, “Another deduction that is disappearing is one for fees paid to agents, other outside managers or headhunters, who take a commission on salary directly from an individual.” The key word here is […]
Archives for December 2017
People, Etc.
Mary McCue has been promoted to director of publicity at Random House Children’s. At Holiday House, Emily Mannon has been promoted to marketing coordinator. Emily Campisano has been promoted to associate publicist. The Association of American University Presses has formally changed its name to the Association of University Presses (AUPresses). Executive Director Peter Berkery comments in the announcement, “Updating our name is simultaneously a return to roots and a flowering outwards, embracing what makes our members so essential to scholarly, civic, and cultural life.” In the UK, The Good Agency, a literary agency founded by Julia Kingsford and editor of The Good Immigrant, Nikesh Shukla, […]
Simon & Schuster’s Extensive Answer to Milo’s Latest Motion
One story from 2017 that looks like it will continue on well into 2018 (or even beyond) is Milo Yiannopoulos’s legal challenge of Simon & Schuster’s cancellation of his publishing contract. Having lost their effort to shut the case down by arguing that Yiannopoulos had actually agreed to the cancellation, the publisher responded on Thursday in extensive filings to Yiannopoulos’s own motion for summary judgment — now moving on more to the heart of the matter. Casual readers may be interested in some of the small details — there is official confirmation that Allum Bokhari was Yiannopoulos’s ghost writer (BuzzFeed had said he was paid […]
The Final, Definitive, Very Best of the Best Books of 2017
With 62 votes counted we’re ready to present the final and ultimate (despite some newcomers) aggregation of selective “best of 2017” book lists from all over — including major publications of all kinds, but also retailer and library selections, award nominees, and more. (As usual, we have updated the previous post with all of our sources noted.) This year’s final list features our first-ever two-time Book of the Year honoree, George Saunders. His story collection Tenth of December tied for top honors with Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch in 2013, but both titles collected 25 votes each that year. Saunder’s new […]
People, Etc.
Sean Murray has been promoted to executive director of sales for Sourcebooks, where has worked for 17 years. Chin-Yee Lai will join Basic Books as creative director starting January 2. She has worked as a freelance art director at Norton for eleven years, and designed jackets for publishers including Penguin Random House, Grove Atlantic, FSG, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Jess Brallier will leave his position as vp and publisher of Abrams Plus business group at the end of the year. Bloomsbury Publishing group finance director Wendy Pallot will leave the company after a 12-month notice period to join Euromoney Institutional Investor. A […]
Avedon Estate Calls for Withdrawal, Correction of Biography
The Richard Avedon Foundation called on Spiegel & Grau to cease publication of the just-released biography Avedon: Something Personal by Norma Stevens and Steven Aronson, saying that “much of the book needs to be corrected or retracted, if not entirely disavowed and discontinued, due to alleged factual inaccuracies.” The foundation asserts “the book is filled with countless inaccuracies” while also claiming “it has been written under false pretenses” and “contains substantial sections that are taken, with only light editing and rewriting, from an unfinished work of fiction that Richard Avedon had been writing prior to his death in collaboration with author Doon […]