The reimagined Book Expo, mission focused on “what the booksellers have said they need to do business at the show” and armed with regional scholarships for each bookselling region has yielded…35 more ABA member stores represented at the show, ABA ceo Oren Teicher said. (Book Expo officials had said, “Our goal is to bring more stores to the show, and make sure all 50 states are represented.”) There are about 150 more individual ABA member booksellers present versus last year — when all badged booksellers and retailers numbered about 1,300. More broadly, at the ABA’s annual meeting on Thursday afternoon, […]
Archives for May 2018
CEO Lessons: “You Can’t Say, ‘Go Fish, Mr. President'”
Macmillan ceo John Sargent provided some color to the Thursday morning ceo panel at Book Expo in reviewing his process when Macmillan was threatened with legal action by President Trump just prior to the publication of Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury. When told about the letter from the Trump’s attorney Charles Harder, “My first reaction was, Holy Cow, we are going to sell a sh–load of books.” Then, in explaining the house’s position, he wanted “to use the moment to make sure that the people at Macmillan understood the importance of free speech. I came up with this idea of writing […]
Tweets, Fears, and Hope at the Book Expo Author Breakfast
Tonight Book Expo attendees can feel the Bern and tomorrow they’ll have to decide how they feel about Spicey, and politics was on the agenda for many of the opening breakfast authors as well. Trevor Noah — for The Daily Show With Trevor Noah Presents The Donald J. Trump Presidential Twitter Library — said of Trump,”We believe you’ll come to understand why he should not be president. Although he is wildly entertaining, he should not be leading anything other than a Twitter account.” Written with the Daily Show Staff, Noah’s book compiles and attempts to analyze the president’s tweets “in […]
People, Etc.
Sarah Jean Grimm has joined Catapult/Counterpoint/Soft Skull as publicity manager. Previously she was a senior publicist at the Crown Publishing Group. Heather Huston has joined Harper Christian as senior director of marketing, specialty division, with a focus on Thomas Nelson Gift, Zondervan Gift, and Tommy Nelson. Most recently Huston was vp, marketing at Rural Media Group. Diane Banks Associates has rebranded itself as Northbank Talent Management, now working with former chair of Channel 4 Luke Johnson, who is providing financial backing (and will serve as chairman) to help create a broader talent agency that includes to books, broadcast, brand licensing and […]
Trump Administration Offers Level Playing Field For Copyright Law
At Book Expo’s Wednesday morning State of the Industry: Publishing and Copyright Policy, participants were in agreement on something to like about the Trump administration: It has offered a level playing field for copyright policy so far. This is seen as a shift from the Obama administration, which was, as Copyright Alliance ceo Keith Kuperschmidt put it, “somewhat enamored with Silicon Valley,” and Google in particular. “We played a lot of defense” during the Obama administration, he added, while with the current administration, “we’re still in a wait and see mode.” Kuperschmidt noted that no copyright bills passed the House during the […]
Riggio Opens Book Expo, “Reimagined” As A Show About Physical Booksellers
I imagine that if you spend much time at Book Expo over the next three days, you’re going to get pretty tired of hearing the word “reimagined” as that theme is repeated everywhere possible. Today’s reimagined mini-show floor, billed as focused on business to business exhibits, pretty much feels like Ingram Day (and remainders). Ingram’s sprawling business lines, both their B2B services but also their many distribution groups, comprise a significant portion of part of the show floor which is open today. But less than a third of the full show floor — like last year, much smaller than what […]