Donald Trump remains remarkably effective at boosting the sales of books he tries to block. As of June 30 Simon & Schuster told the court they had printed and started shipping approximately 75,000 copies of Mary Trump‘s TOO MUCH AND NEVER ENOUGH — and yesterday in a new afffadavit the publisher said they have printed and shipped over 600,000 hardcovers.
Bookselling
During lockdown Barnes & Noble refreshed about 350 of its stores, but as the NYT reports, the adjustments were relatively minor, “using small teams to move furniture around, paint walls and bring in new books.” Ceo James Daunt reports that store sales are “down about 20 percent overall from last year.”
Awards
Colson Whitehead won the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction for the The Nickel Boys (Doubleday), while Kate Clanchy won the Political Writing Prize for Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me (Picador).
M&A
UK wholesaler Gardners has acquired the assets of Bertram Books, Bertrams Library Services, and Dawson Books from the bankruptcy administration, and will reopen what was the Bertrams warehouse in Norwich.
Forthcoming
Marvel Entertainment and Scholastic will expand their partnership with a multi-year original graphic novel program featuring Marvel superheroes including Miles Morales, Kamala Khan, and Shuri. The initiative launches in spring 2021 through Scholastic’s Graphix Media imprint.
Singer and songwriter Lana Del Rey‘s book of poetry, VIOLET BENT BACKWARDS OVER THE GRASS releases as a digital audio spoken word album combining select poems with music from Jack Antonoff on July 28, and Simon & Schuster will release the hardcover on September 29.