Due to a restructuring of the art team at Penguin Publishing Group, Paul Buckley and Roseanne Serra have left the company.
Archives for October 2023
Frankfurt Book Fair: Drop-Outs, Unease, and Malaviya’s Remarks
The Frankfurt Book Fair kicked off on Tuesday, and it was clear from the beginning–and even from the days leading up to it–that the unofficial theme would be the crisis in the Middle East. At the opening press conference on Tuesday morning, held in a larva-shaped pod in the fairgrounds courtyard, keynote speaker journalist Gaia Vince talked about climate catastrophe and global migration, but the first English language question from the press was about the controversy surrounding Palestinian author Adania Shibli. Since organizers announced last Friday that a celebration for Shibli’s book had been cancelled by the prize organizers and […]
Publishers Make Record Bets on Fiction Heading Into Frankfurt
The trends we noted in our recent analysis of third quarter deal reports — fewer overall reports, growing totals for adult fiction, but record numbers of “major” deals — come into concentrated relief as we narrow down into the traditional “pre-Frankfurt” dealmaking window in particular. Since 2021, the Frankfurt Book Fair has fallen a week later than usual, yet again our counts include one extra day of deal reports — but that makes for even comps to 2022 and 2021. For many years, FBF would come five weeks after Labor Day, so our count usually covers five weeks plus one […]
Ask an Expert: Deb Futter, President and Publisher, Celadon
Deb Futter is the president and publisher of Celadon Books. Prior to this role, she was the publisher of Twelve and vice president and editor-in-chief at Grand Central Publishing; previously, she spent 25 years at Random House Inc. She has acquired and edited numerous bestselling and acclaimed books by authors including Abby Wambach, Barbara Ehrenreich, Carole King, Jane Hamilton, Jean Hanff Korelitz, Min Jin Lee, Noah Hawley, Pete Dexter, Scott Turow, and Steve Martin, among many others. What criteria do you think about when you consider a work of fiction by a debut author? I like a book to be […]
Dealmaker Updates – October
Cleaner Returns Boost August AAP Sales
The AAP released StatShot data for August, with shipments to accounts looking strong ahead of the fall season. Sales from reporting publishers were $701 million, up 6.4 percent (or $45 million) from a relatively weak August a year ago. A better return rate contributed to the strong month, and the bar for August 2022 was reset lower as well: The revised and final data has that month registering sales of $659 million, versus the originally reported $686 million. Adult books sold $486 million overall, up 7.6 percent, with $148 million in hardcovers (a 19.4 percent gain) and $182.5 million in […]