After 26 years of free admission, the Miami Book Fair will charge for this year’s event, held between November 8 and 15th. Attendees will be asked to pay $8 for admission to the weekend street fair on Saturday and Sunday and $10 for ”Evenings With . . .” programs that run opening night and through the week. The fair will also discontinue its opening-day festivities, its Street Fair parade and International Pavilions. Kids under 18 will still get in free, and fair-goers over 62 will still pay $5 for the street fair. Cofounder and chair Mitch Kaplan told the Miami […]
August Indie Next Picks
Labor Day: A Novel by Joyce Maynard The Girl Who Played With Fire: A Novel by Stieg Larsson The Magicians: A Novel by Lev Grossman This Is Where I Leave You: A Novel by Jonathan Tropper The Arms Maker of Berlin: A Novel by Dan Fesperman The Weight of Silence: A Novel by Heather Gudenkauf South of Broad by Pat Conroy While I’m Falling: A Novel by Laura Moriarty Sandman Slim: A Novel by Richard Kadrey Undone: A Novel by Karin Slaughter In This Way I Was Saved: A Novel by Brian DeLeeuw Of Bees and Mist: A Novel by […]
People and Awards
Anova executive director Roger Huggins is to leave the company on July 31 when he intends to become involved in a “variety of publishing projects”. The Strand Magazine announced its Critics Awards on Wednesday night at a private cocktail ceremony in Manhattan. Richard Price won Best Novel for Lush Life and Tom Rob Smith won Best First Novel for Child 44. The Ted Hughes Award, launched by UK Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy to run over the course of her 10-year-term, will give out £5,000 annually to the poet who has made the “most exciting contribution” to poetry that year.
DOJ Officially Opens Google Settlement Antitrust Investigation; Must Present Views to Judge by 9/18
The Department of Justice officially indicated Thursday that it “has opened an antitrust investigation” into the proposed settlement between Google and authors and publishers. “At this preliminary stage, the United States has reached no conclusions as to the merit of those concerns or more broadly what impact this settlement may have on competition,” deputy assistant attorney general William F. Cavanaugh said in a letter to the federal judge overseeing the settlement. Justice says they were spurred by “public comments expressing concern that aspects of the settlement may violate the Sherman Act.” In response, the Southern District of New York set […]
People
James Gurbutt has joined Constable and Robinson to head a still-untitled new fiction imprint. He was most recently associate publisher at Harvill Secker. Literary agents Serafina Clarke and Brie Burkeman have combined their two companies to establish Brie Burkeman & Serafina Clarke Ltd., specializing in high quality commercial writing across all mediums.
Hachette Relaxes Stance on Text-to-Speech
Hachette Book Group issued a statement this morning that the company is willing to support Text-to-Speech functionality more widely for the titles they publish in digital book format, citing the likelihood of TTS being a feature on an increasing number of devices due to be released in the coming months. “We have a primary duty to respect our authors’ wishes,” said Chairman and CEO David Young. “If our authors do not object,” he continued, “then, based on the current technology, we would not take issue with the availability of this functionality for the vast majority of our books, excluding books […]