Correcting and updating a story we ran earlier, Allen & Unwin publisher Kelly Fagan has made “allegations of sexual harassment by a former publisher at the company over a two-year period,” according to her attorneys at Maurice Blackburn Lawyers. Those lawyers say her harassment claim alleges “that she was sexually harassed at work.” The charges were referenced in a recent Sydney Morning Herald article that says, “The literary world is in a lather over a sexual harassment lawsuit filed in the Federal Court by one of the industry’s most prominent publishers, Kelly Fagan, against her employer Allen & Unwin.” The […]
Archives for May 2023
People 5/2
Penguin Random House Makes Voluntary Separation Offer
Following voluntary buyout offers from Hachette Book Group (to employees over 50) and HarperCollins (to employees with more than 25 years of service) earlier this year, Penguin Random House announced internally their own voluntary separation offering this week — which was offered as a benefit, to “support our colleagues professional and personal lives” and “responding to the needs and desires of our long-tenured employees.” The offer is available to employees who will be 60 or older as of the end of the year, and have 15 years of service or more. Eligible employees have until June 20 to elect to […]
TikTok Owner May Launch Publishing Company
ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, appears to be expanding into the publishing business. The company has listed a number of open jobs in the “online publishing” department in recent weeks, and a ByteDance subsidiary recently filed a trademark for 8th Note Press. A spokesperson told PL that the initiative is not related to TikTok and that ByteDance is always exploring new opportunities. The trademark application states that 8th Note Press expects to offer print books, ebooks, and audiobooks in fiction and nonfiction, as well as an app to buy and read the books. Unsurprisingly, social networking is part of […]
May Book Club Picks
Oprah chose The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese as her next book club pick.
New Books Publishing May 2
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Justin Cronin, and Dave Barry publish new fiction this week, while nonfiction includes new work from Minka Kelly, Michio Kaku, Camille T. Dungy, Ben Smith and Jeffrey Toobin. Angeline Boulley, Becky Albertalli, Ibi Zoboi, and Jason Reynolds all publish new kids titles this month. Our Buzz Books 2023: Spring/Summer collection also has excerpts of many top titles publishing today: Tembe Denton-Hurst’s Homebodies, Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Dad, Susie Luo’s Paper Names, Janika Oza’s A History of Burning, Crystal Smith Paul’s Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?, and Abraham Verghese’s The Covenant of Water. 33 works of fiction https://bookshop.org/lists/new-fiction-publishing-may-2 […]