Kate Garrick has joined The Karpfinger Agency as an agent. Previously she was an agent at DeFiore and Company, and will bring her list of clients to the Karpfinger Agency. In the UK, Profile publishing director Mike Jones is leaving the office just a year after joining it, by “mutual consent” according to the Bookseller. He will work on some manuscripts from home and formally leave the company in September. Target‘s Book Club pick for August is Orphan Number Eight by Kim Van Aklemade.
Andersons Get “Definitive Agreement” to Buyout Books-A-Million For $21 Million
Six months after their latest offer to take Books-A-Million private, the controlling Anderson family has reached a deal to buyout shareholders of the country’s second-largest book retailer for approximately $21 million, an improved offer of $3.25 a share. (Previously, they offered $17 million, or $2.75 a share.) Unanimously approved by a special board committee and the directors, the deal offers a 23 percent premium over Monday’s closing trading price of $2.60 a share. A majority of the shareholders outside of the family still need to approve the deal for it to go through. The Andersons currently own just under 58 percent of shares. They […]
Carter Op-Ed Claims “Full Story” on WATCHMAN Manuscript Discovery
Over the weekend all pretense of holding to the Tuesday embargo for reviews of GO SET A WATCHMAN evaporated. Michiko Kakutani went first late Friday, revealing in her NYT review (which essentially doubled as breaking news) that Harper Lee’s original novel — out of which resulted TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD — presents an older, infirm Atticus Finch espousing racist, segregationist views and going to “at least one KKK meeting.” At the same time, it appeared the WSJ’s “pre-publication marketing campaign” included an essay from Lee’s “estate trustee, lawyer, and friend” Tonja B. Carter, who claims to tell the “full story, […]
Six Months of Lawsuits
As we’ve continually reported over the past few years, the course of publishing continues to turn on litigation as much as innovation. In the most anticipated ruling of the year so far, the Court of Appeals recently upheld the antitrust verdict against Apple in a heatedly divided ruling that portends further appeal. The payout a settlement of up to $400 million to consumers (and another $50 million in legal fees) now hinges on whether Apple continues to pursue the case. Other ongoing cases of note include the FCS bankruptcy proceedings, and the suits against Author Solutions, along with the recently-opened antitrust […]
Watching the WATCHMAN Excerpts in Multiple Countries
Just after midnight EDT the opening chapter of Harper Lee’s GO SET A WATCHMAN was excerpted simultaneously in the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, and the Sydney Morning Herald, accounting for the major English-language territories in which the book will be published July 14. Each outlet also included an audio transcript of Reese Witherspoon reading the opening chapter, which begins: “Since Atlanta, she had looked out the dining-car window with a delight almost physical. Over her breakfast coffee, she watched the last of Georgia’s hills recede and the red earth appear, and with it tin-roofed houses set in the middle […]
Best Boy by Eli Gottlieb Leads August Library Reads List
Eli Gottlieb’s new novel Best Boy is the No. 1 pick for the August Library Reads list. The list also includes The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman, an excerpt of which you can start reading right now in our Buzz Books 2015: Fall/Winter ebook. The rest of the list features: The Nature of the Beast, by Louise Penny A Window Opens, by Elisabeth Egan Everybody Rise, by Stephanie Clifford The Fall of Princes, by Robert Goolrick In a Dark, Dark Wood, by Ruth Ware Black-Eyed Susans, by Julia Heaberlin Lord of the Wings, by Donna Andrews Browsings, by Michael […]