Former chief of the criminal fraud section of the Department of Justice Andrew Weissman points out that news of Paul Manafort’s forthcoming book from Skyhorse raises some interesting questions. His plea agreement with the government — in which he admitted to money laundering, tax fraud, violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, conspiracy to obstruct justice while tampering with witnesses and other crimes — was designed to ensure that he would not profit from writing about his crimes: “Your client agrees not to accept remuneration or compensation of any sort, directly or indirectly, for the dissemination through any means, including […]
Adding Up 2021’s Big Sales Gains
NPD Bookscan released final year-end print sales data for 2021, and per recent reporting on holiday sales and AAP data through November, trade publishing enjoyed historic results. 2020 was surprisingly a great year from a statistical perspective, though full of challenges and strong results were not enjoyed evenly throughout the business. 2021 turns out to have been better still, growing even more in both total units added and on a percentage basis. Measured print sales reached 826 million units in 2021, up 68 million units (or 9 percent) over 758 million units in 2020 — when sales had grown 57 […]
Agency News: Reuben Leaves Paradigm for WME
Longtime Paradigm veteran and head of their book publishing division Alyssa Reuben, has moved over to William Morris Endeavor’s books department in New York.
Quarto’s Controlling Owner Adds Shares
CK Lau remains a buyer of shares in Quarto: His company 1010 Printing Limited has acquired another 1.343 million shares in the publisher recently, now owning 44.52 percent of the company. (Lau owns additional shares personally, about a 4 percent stake last we saw a disclosure.)
Correction
Our apologies: Friday’s list celebrating the very best books of 2021 got an important credit wrong. Honoree Fanonne Jeffers’ novel of the year The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois was edited by Erin Wicks and published by Harper.
For the Record: The Very Best of the Best Books of 2021
Per our earlier counts, it came down to the wire in tabulating the consensus very best books of 2021 and fittingly, works of nonfiction and fiction tied for Book(s) of the Year: The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers and Empire of Pain, by Patrick Radden Keefe shared the top honor. And books by Kazuo Ishiguro, Colson Whitehead, and Michelle Zauner all followed so closely (just two votes behind) that you can consider them almost equally lauded. As usual, here are out top 10s for the year — based on 63 “votes” from a variety of […]