At SXSW, the disconnect between traditional book publishing and the forward-thinking conference attendees was never more apparent than in reaction to yesterday’s “New Think for Old Publishers” panel featuring Clay Shirky (whose recent essay on the newspaper industry has been much discussed over the weekend.) The panel writeup had audience members believing the session was about learning what was wrong and right with publishing. Panel members, which included Penguin marketing director John Fagan, Putnam President Ivan Held and Bloomsbury Publicity Director Peter Miller, and moderator Deborah Schultz, evidently had something else in mind: to invite the audience to tell them […]
Informa Cuts Final Dividend to Reduce Net Debts
The publishing and events group is targeting debts of below £1bn but insisted there was no danger of banking covenants being breached. The final dividend, down at 3.9p from 11.3p, will be paid on 3 July.Telegraph
Announcements
Gary Young has won the Shelley Memorial Award, given annually by the Poetry Society of America to a living American poet “selected with reference to genius and need.” The 2009 Iowa Short Fiction Award was given to Kathryn Ma for her collection, “All That Work and Still No Boys,” which will be published this fall by the University of Iowa Press. IndieBound has been named by ReBrand as one of its 100 Global Winning Brands.
Waterstone's Exclusive Deal Provokes Indies' Ire
Sunnyside, Glen David Gold’s first novel since 2001, will be published in the UK by Sceptre this July – but only Waterstone’s stocks the hardback for an exclusive four-month window while all other booksellers will receive only a paperback later in the fall. The news has independents in a letter-writing campaign calling for a boycott of the paperback edition, while others have said they are considering removing the publisher from any recommended lists, or that they will “think twice” about ordering books from Sceptre in future. Waterstone’s sold 19 books with an exclusive time window in 2008 but it appears […]
HMH To Publish Obscure Early Tolkien Novel
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will publish The Legend of of Sigurd and Gudrun, “a thorough reworking in verse of old Norse epics” that predates The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, in May. AP
Atwood Drops Out of Dubai Festival
Margaret Atwood has pulled out of the Emirates Airline International Festival for Literature in the wake of the fair’s decision to cancel the launch of Geraldine Bedell’s The Gulf Between Us because of the inclusion of a gay character. Other authors due to appear at the festival, including bestselling children’s authors Anthony Horowitz and Lauren Child, are now also reconsidering whether to attend. Atwood, a vice president of International PEN, has written to the festival’s director about the “regrettable turn of events” surrounding Geraldine Bedell’s The Gulf Between Us. “I was greatly looking forward to the festival, and to the […]