The ABA is making changes to its by-laws and ends policies. Among those changes is a focus on their revised mission of serving bookstores in particular (including used bookstores). Current bylaws define eligible members as “any commercial establishment that is primarily engaged in the retail sale of new books,” which will be revised to, “businesses that primarily sell books, meaning more than 50 percent of their inventory must be in books and/or book media.” An adjustment in the ends policies reaches beyond store owners, who were the founding focus of the ABA, to include bookstore staff. The group now promises […]
Archives for October 2021
Nobel to Gurnah, As US Readers Will Have to Wait
Tanzanian-born novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents.” Gurnah writes in English, and teaches English Literature at the University of Kent in Canterbury. His principal publisher has been Bloomsbury UK. His longtime editor there Alexandra Pringle said, “He is one of the greatest living African writers, and no one has ever taken any notice of him and it’s just killed me. I did a podcast last week and in it I said that […]
Obituary: Literary Agent Philip Spitzer, 82
Philip Spitzer, 82, founder of the eponymous literary agency, died on October 5 in Southampton, NY. His clients included James Lee Burke, Michael Connelly, Alafair Burke, Andre Dubus, Andre Dubus III, Ken Bruen, Simon Van Booy, among many others. Spitzer began his career as an editorial assistant at NYU Press and got his starting in agenting in the 1960s, when he worked for John Cushman Associates, then the American affiliate of Curtis, Brown, London. In 1969 he formed the Philip G. Spitzer Literary Agency, representing a broad range of fiction and nonfiction writers, as well more than a dozen French […]
Imprints: Melinda Gates Pairs with Flatiron
Philanthropist, businesswoman, and global advocate for women and girls Melinda French Gates has partnered with Flatiron Books for a new nonfiction imprint, Moment of Lift Books. The line will launch with three titles in 2023, featuring books “written by experts, advocates, and authors working across a broad range of fields to advance equity for women and girls.” Gates’s own recent book was titled, The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World, and the imprint was announced by evp editorial development at Macmillan Will Schwalbe, who edited Gates’s book. “When I asked Melinda about a second book,” Schwalbe says […]
Updates on the Supply Chain Issues
The NYT helped tell all your friends and customers that the broader supply chain difficulties apply to book publishing as well as many other industries, and others continue to amplify the issues. Booksellers continue to join in as well, advising patrons to “shop now for the titles you know you’ll want, pre-order titles not yet published” and to be wary of value-priced media which “can be erratic, particularly late in the season.” In a webinar on Tuesday, four publishing executives discussed how labor shortages, plus increased costs for materials and international shipping, have strained the industry, and what publishers are […]
People 10/6
David Ebershoff will be the new editor-in-chief of Hogarth Books, continuing to report to Random House evp publisher Andy Ward.