In the UK, Juliet Mushens and Robert Caskie have formed a new literary agency, Caskie Mushens. Mushens has left UTA and will bring her clients over with her; Caskie had left PFD, where he was chief operating officer as well as an agent, in early 2016, saying he intended to explore new opportunities “in a related industry.” Separately, another former UTA agent Sarah Manning has joined the Bent Agency, based in London. She will expand the UK office’s representation into adult fiction and nonfiction. At Penguin Random House in the US, Debra Polansky has been hired as vp, director of sales for Penguin Children’s, under Felicia Frazier. She previously […]
Threshold to Publish Yiannopoulos’s DANGEROUS, But UK Division Opts Out
Threshold Editions confirmed an earlier report from The Hollywood Reporter that they will publish Breitbart News editor and Twitter troll (now permanently banned from the service) Milo Yiannopoulous’s DANGEROUS on March 14, 2017. The publisher said in the announcement: “Dangerous will be a book on free speech by the outspoken and controversial gay British writer and editor at Breitbart News who describes himself as ‘the most fabulous supervillain on the internet.'” Threshold acquired world rights from Thomas Flannery at AGI Vigliano, with THR citing “people with knowledge of the situation” that Yiannopoulos is receiving a $250,000 advance. Yiannopoulos added to […]
Briefs
The Costco Pennie’s Pick for January is Amy Stewart‘s Girl Waits With Gun (HMH) while the company’s book club pick for the month is The Tumbling Turner Sisters (Gallery) by Juliette Fay. Updating our very best of the best books of 2016 report, Jacqueline Woodson is represented now by Kathleen Nishimoto at William Morris Endeavor. Also, USA Today weighed in with their top 10 books of the year (now added to our vote count), also naming Colson Whitehead as their author of the year. Announcements The Ward & Balkin Agency is being acquired by Roam Agency as of July 1, 2017, when […]
Employee Sues Google Over Confidentiality Policies (Including Approval For Writing Novels)
Earlier this week an anonymous Google employee sued over internal confidentiality policies that run the gamut from spying on employees to writing novels without the company’s approval, saying they breach California labor laws. The suit, first reported on by The Information, “alleges Google runs an internal ‘spying program’ which relies on employees voluntarily reporting other employees who might have leaked information.” The John Doe plaintiff, employed as a product manager at Google, is suing under a California provision that allows employees to sue on behalf of other co-workers. Should the plaintiff win, the state would receive 75 percent of the […]
Pantsuit Nation Founder Clarifies Book Deal and Nonprofit Status After Criticism
Earlier this week the founder of the private Facebook group Pantsuit Nation faced criticism and controversy following the announcement of coffee-table book comprising member posts set to be published in May by Flatiron Books. Founded by Libby Chamberlain in October for Hillary Clinton supporters to express enthusiasm for their candidate, and then a place for them to commiserate after Clinton’s election loss, at least some vocal members of the nearly four-million person group took issue with the book deal, as a “betrayal of safe space” and for seeming to sell the group out. In a public follow-up Facebook message, Chamberlain clarified how member […]
PRH UK Returns to Negotiate New Collective Agreement
After a tumultuous week of stories that do not fully align, Penguin Random House UK and the two unions representing some of their employees are talking again, and reporting progress towards a new agreement. On Wednesday, PRH UK and the unions Unite and the National Union of Journalists issued a joint statement saying that they “held a positive meeting today at which all parties agreed to continue talks with the aim of securing a new collective agreement for the combined Penguin Random House UK business. While some elements of the agreement in discussion are yet to be finalized and agreed […]