If you love online book fairs, the next six weeks are your time to shine, including: May 23 – 28 Abu Dhabi International Book Fair May 25 – 27 US Book Show May 27 ABA Town Hall & Annual Meeting June 8, 9 Edelweiss Bookfest June 7 – 10 London Book Fair Conferences June 10 13 TorCon June 14 – 17 Bologna Children’s Book Fair June 21 – July 1 London Book Fair Online June 23 – 29 American Library Association Annual Conference and Exhibition
People: Weber to Leave Macmillan
Macmillan global chief operating office Andrew Weber “will depart at the end of May to take a position with another company.” He has been at Macmillan since 2013. Holtzbrinck Publishing Group ceo Stefan von Holtzbrinck says in the announcement: “Andrew has been a loyal partner to Macmillan and Holtzbrinck, with great collegiality, human warmth and an eye for talent, all of which will ensure his legacy at Macmillan Publishers as well as at Macmillan Learning.”
Amazon Publishing Reaches Library Deal
Amazon Publishing will finally make their titles available for lending to library patrons in the US, working with the non-profit Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) and the SimplyE ereader app created by the New York Public Library. Starting this summer, and applying to their full catalog of approximately 10,000 ebooks and audiobooks, Amazon Publishing will offer four different licensing models. They say, “We expect that libraries will be able to access all of the Amazon Publishing titles by the end of the year.” For access by one reader at a time, they provide for either unlimited lends in a […]
ProQuest to be Sold to Clarivate for $5.3 Billion
Publicly-traded Clarivate (the awkward modern name for what was Thompson Reuters’ IP and science division, FKA as Thompson Scientific) has an agreement to acquire library content and services company ProQuest for $5.3 billion from Cambridge Information Group and its partners. Clarivate will pay with $4 billion in cash and $1.3 billion in equity. Chairman of ProQuest and CEO of Cambridge Information Group Andy Snyder, who will join the Clarivate board as vice chair after the deal closes, says in the announcement: “I have seen ProQuest evolve to meet our customers’ ever-changing needs over the last several decades and fully understand […]
Pence and Conway Are On, Cohen Book Is Off, and S&S Will Distribute Blake Bailey
The New Republic reports on last week’s town hall meeting at Simon & Schuster, at which the standoff continued between management and a good portion of the employees over the planned publication of books by former vice president Mike Pence and Kellyanne Conway. Based on a recording of the meeting, the article buries the lede: CEO Jonathan Karp reportedly told employees that Conway’s deal is “contingent on being truthful” (their line, not his). For Pence there is a softer standard: “His agent insisted there ‘would be nothing discriminatory’ in the book and that the vice president had promised to be […]
Gendell Agrees to Foundry Receiver, Asks Court to Allow Sale of Agency
Former Foundry partner Yfat Reiss Gendell told the New York Supreme Court that she agrees to and joins in former partner Peter McGuigan’s request for a temporary receiver to manage the agency’s affairs. The two continue to disagree on how to oversee Foundry’s business, with each blaming the other for the obstruction. Gendell’s new filing alleges that, “McGuigan continues to refuse to pay various service providers, such as Foundry’s transactional counsel, refuses to pay for rent and utilities for Foundry’s office, and refuses to authorize Foundry to make payments on its line of credit.” Significantly, Gendell also wants the court-appointed […]