Christian Trimmer will join Simon & Schuster Children’s as senior editor on April 15. Previously he was senior editor at Disney-Hyperion. Wah-Ming Chang has joined Melville House as managing editor. Previously she was a production manager at FSG. In addition, Alex Shephard has been named director of digital marketing, as well as managing editor of the publisher’s MobyLives blog. Shephard is editor-in-chief of online literary magazine Full Stop. At Random House, Jennifer Javier has been promoted to regional sales manager, International Sales, covering Indonesia and the Philippines. Javier will be based in Manila. At Hachette Book Group, Ali Coughlin has been […]
Night Shade Books Finds Buyer in Skyhorse–But Only If Authors Renegotiate
San Francisco-based publisher of science fiction & fantasy Night Shade Books, which has been struggling financially for several years, indicated in a letter to authors and agents earlier this week that the company plans to sell its assets to Skyhorse (as well as another entity, Start Publishing LLC.) The catch is that the sale cannot happen unless “a sufficient number of Night Shade authors agree to certain changes to their contracts.” Alternately, Night Shade will file for bankruptcy or liquidation proceedings. In the letter, Night Shade explains their financial difficulties were exacerbated by Borders’ liquidation, so much so that they […]
People, Etc.
Lisa Vanterpool has joined Inkwell Literary Management as public relations & social media strategist. Previously she was at Blake Friedmann, where she focused on strategic social media development and publicity. At the Simon & Schuster imprint, Emily Graff has been named associate editor. Ann Hulbert will join the Atlantic as books & culture editor in June, the Observer reports, as part of an attempt “to beef up their culture coverage and help expand and re-envision their online book coverage.” Hulbert was previously an editor at Slate and the New Republic and is currently a Spencer Fellow at Columbia Journalism School. George […]
Judge Throws Out Class Action Suit Against Harlequin Alleging eBook Royalty Deprivation
On Tuesday a federal court class-action lawsuit against Harlequin for allegedly depriving authors of ebook royalties was dismissed, with Judge Harold Baer ruling that Harlequin had abided by the terms of their contracts and that the plaintiff authors — Barbara Keiler, Mona Gay Thomas, and Linda Barrett – did not sufficiently state a claim that they had lost significant ebook royalties between 1990 and 2004. The original complaint alleged that Harlequin improperly licensed ebook rights to their own Switzerland-based subsidiaries, yielding authors a small royalty–“3 to 4 percent of the ebook cover price”–as their 50 percent share of proceeds, rather […]
People, Awards, Etc.
Author Iain Banks reported in a statement that he has inoperable late-stage metastatic gall bladder cancer and is “extremely unlikely” to live for more than another year. “So it looks like my latest novel, The Quarry, will be my last…. Meanwhile my heroic publishers are doing all they can to bring the publication date of my new novel forward by as much as four months, to give me a better chance of being around when it hits the shelves.” At Little, Brown Children’s, Pam Gruber has been promoted to associate editor. At McGill-Queen’s University Press, Susan McIntosh has been promoted to associate director. Berlin-based […]
People, Etc.
The new controlling owners of the Agatha Christie estate have signed with William Morris Endeavor for exclusive representation of all facets of the estate, “expanding its reach across television, film and digital media.” Acorn Productions acquired the 64 percent stake in Agatha Christie Ltd that had been owned by Chorion in February 2012, calling it “the most important deal in the company’s history.” The Agatha Christie family owns the remaining 36 percent. Christie’s literary works include over 80 novels and short story collections and 19 plays, which they say continue to sell at a rate of over three million books per year […]