On July 28 the Federal Trade Commission made a second request for information in their review of Clarivate’s pending $5.3 billion acquisition of ProQuest. Clarivate announced that as a result, the parties extended the outside date for completion of the deal to December 31. Both Clarivate and ProQuest “each have the option to extend the new outside date to April 29, 2022.” As we noted previously, second requests are generally issued for only 2 to 4 percent of Hart-Scott-Rodino transactions — and as law firm Winston & Strawn advised, “most Second Requests result in a settlement, litigation to block the transaction, or […]
Controversies: NYT Says Cuomo’s Book Gave PRH “Ethical and Financial Headaches”
Following the announcement of Andrew Cuomo’s resignation as governor of New York, the NYT revisits the “ethical and financial” headaches of American Crisis: Leadership Lessons From the Covid-19 Pandemic — even though the book has been functionally dead for months (selling approximately 350 hardcovers since the beginning of April). As they note, the book significantly underperformed the $5.1 million advance and first printing of over 450,000 copies from the very start. (Last summer’s auction is now characterized, without sourcing, as “frenzied.”) The paper claims “questions remained about whether Crown will pay the remainder of his advance,” presumably referring to the […]
Postponed: Winslow Moves Book to 2022
Don Winslow’s CITY ON FIRE, the first in a trilogy originally scheduled for publication on September 21, has been postponed by the author. Winslow said in a statement: “One of the great joys of publishing a new book is interacting with readers on tour, a hallmark of each of my publications. In light of rising Covid case numbers across the U.S., I’ve decided to postpone the publication of City on Fire until 2022 when I can tour at full capacity, meet with readers in signing lines and shake the hands of the people I value so much. To keep everyone […]
Legal: Fairstein’s Defamation Claims Go Forward
US District Judge Kevin Castel in New York’s Southern District declared that Linda Fairstein has plausibly alleged instances of defamation in the 2019 Netflix series “When They See Us” and will allow the lawsuit to proceed. The judge will also allow defamation claims against director Ava DuVernay and writer and producer Attica Locke to proceed, along with civil conspiracy claims, while dismissing some other claims. Reuters
A Summer Sale
I’m not sure we have ever done this before, but it has been a long time since we have offered any kind of discount at PublishersMarketplace. So we are trying a little summer sale this week. Use the promo code summer21 in the provided box when you enroll and get $10 off the first month’s membership fee (a 40 percent reduction). The code will work through lucky Friday the 13th. Also note, for another value approach to our deep resources at PM, earlier this year we introduced a Quick Pass option — providing short-term use of the site for a […]
International: Fest and Schieder to Leave Rowohlt for DTV
Alexander Fest, long-serving publisher at Germany’s Rowohlt until stepping down in 2014 to work as editor at large, is leaving the company at the end of January 2022 after more than 20 years, to join DTV as consulting publisher in spring 2022. Buchmarket observes that, “With this, the traditional company is losing a piece of its DNA.” CEO of Holtzbrinck Germany Alexander Lorbeer says in the announcement, “I regret and respect Alexander Fest’s personal decision. Even if he will be with the publisher until the beginning of next year, I would like to express our special thanks to him today for his […]