In the latest sweeping break from norms, the Department of Justice has fully taken over from Trump family personal attorney Charles Harder — who keeps losing every time he tries to intimidate a publisher or author. They filed suit in a Washington, DC District Court against Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, former adviser and friend to the First Lady, alleging violations of one of the flimsy nondisclosure agreements the Trump family favors. The actual charges are breach of contract and breach of fiduciary obligations, related to the publication of her book MELANIA AND ME. The DOJ tries to bring the standard it […]
Archives for October 2020
Barnes & Noble Says Most “Systems Are Back Online” After Major, Multi-Day Problem, But Nook Is Still Being Restored
Barnes & Noble suffered a serious, widespread, unspecified IT systems problem that appears to have begun on Saturday and was mostly remediated by Tuesday afternoon. The most obvious signs of the problem to the outside world were significant issues accessing Nook titles and other data (libraries, wishlists, etc.) and problems logging into BN.com accounts and reported delays in shipping those orders, while in-store customers appear to have faced at least some checkout issues and difficulty with special orders, stock-finding and other functions that required computer assistance. A BN spokesperson told PL Tuesday afternoon, “We have a serious network issue and […]
People, Etc.
Jenny Jackson has been promoted to vice president, executive editor at Knopf. Weslie Turner has joined Versify as senior editor. Turner was previously associate editor at Imprint. Patrik Bass has been promoted to executive editor at Amistad. Tiffany Shelton has joined Amazon Publishing as acquisitions editor for Little A and Skyscape. She was previously at St. Martin’s. Allie Merola has been promoted to assistant editor at Viking Penguin. Olga Filina, Ali McDonald, and Cassandra Rodgers have left The Rights Factory to launch a new literary agency, with details to follow. Shira Schindel has joined Blackstone as head of content acquisitions. She was […]
August AAP StatShot Shows Continued Trade Gains
The AAP released its August StatShot showing combined adult and children net trade sales of $648 million, up $46 million from last year. However, publishers didn’t ship many more books than they did last year in August; the gains persist because returns have been consistently lower this year. Shipments totaled $744 million, up just $5 million from last year, with returns (30) percent lower. Adult trade sales had another good month, $53 million higher at $453 million, up $52 million from last year. But children’s sales declined, falling $8 million to $194 million — with the total of $647 million […]
New Books Publishing October 13
It’s a John Grisham week…. As in previous weeks, our sample Bookshop and Aerbook store carousels provide easy displays of books publishing today in need of attention and support, featuring: 16 new works of fiction https://bookshop.org/lists/new-fiction-publishing-october-13 17 new nonfiction titles https://bookshop.org/lists/new-nonfiction-publishing-october-13 More new children’s and YA titles https://bookshop.org/lists/new-children-s-titles-publishing-in-orctoberber We consult a number of sources in compiling our weekly lists and PM members can see our lists for the coming three months through this reference page. But if you want to make sure your key titles are on our radar, now you can use this form to submit brief details as well: publun.ch/submitNotable. Please submit […]
People, Etc.
At Avid Reader Press, Carolyn Kelly has been promoted to assistant editor. Morgan Hoit becomes marketing manager. Kimberly Carlton has been promoted to acquisitions editor at Harper Christian. Ariele Fredman has been promoted to senior associate director of publicity at Atria. Jasmine Faustino is leaving Macmillan after 16 years, most recently at Macmillan Podcasts and Flatiron, to become a managing editor at Pushkin Industries. At Simon & Schuster, Rachel Berquist has been promoted to adult library marketing coordinator; Amy Beaudoin to children’s library marketing manager; Amanda Livingston to children’s library marketing coordinator; Saimah Haque to director of advertising & paid digital media; […]