Macmillan ceo John Sargent wrote to agents earlier this week to present for the first time a new standardized boilerplate contract across all of the trade publisher’s imprints and divisions that the company intends to introduce as of November 9, featuring a number of comprehensive changes in their basic business terms. The goal, he writes, is “to facilitate a more efficient contracting process, for ourselves as well as for our authors and their agents, and to make sure our author agreements reflect current business realities.” One notable effect, as agent Richard Curtis underscores on his blog, is a proposed new […]
Agency News
People
At Dutton, Ben Sevier has been promoted to executive editor. Agent Amy Tipton has left FinePrint Literary Management to join Signature Literary Agency. Former Pantheon publisher Janice Goldklang has joined Globe Pequot Press as executive director of editorial. The Frankfurt Book Fair has fired project manager Peter Ripken, saying in a statement it was for “ongoing difficulties.” As Deutsche World notes, it was Ripken who “uninvited” two Chinese dissidents from that pre-Fair symposium (leading to the Book Fair’s series of denials and apologies). As they report it, Ripken also kept those same two dissidents from speaking at the book fair’s […]
PFD Is Representing Horror Film Maker
It shows you what the once-illustrious British literary agency has become, as their Frankfurt announcement is representation for Hammer Films–maker of movies like Dracula and Curse of Frankenstein in the 50s, and moribund since the mid-80s, now returning to filmmaking. PFD’s Caroline Michel says they will “bring new life to the brand with exciting contemporary writers,” trying to pitch the horror movie company as just like the James Bond franchise.Variety
People and More
The Reece Halsey North, Reece Halsey New York and Reece Halsey Paris literary agencies have melding into Kimberley Cameron & Associates, with the same staff and offices (new contacts are at the site: www.KimberleyCameron.com). Penguin UK managing director Helen Fraser will retire from the publisher at the end of the year. She is going to become chief executive of the Girls’ Day School Trust, and will also join the board of Frances Lincoln as a non-executive director. The Guardian Children’s Fiction prize has gone to Mal Peet‘s EXPOSURE.
People: Coyne's New Agency, and More
Former Endeavor agent (and Rugged Land publisher before that) Shawn Coyne has established his own firm, Genre Management, “a boutique agency with a select number of clients.” Coyne says that all of his signed clients from the former Endeavor have followed him to his new agency, including golf commentator and personality David Feherty, and his new clients include Alexis Stewart and her partner Jennifer Hutt Koppelman (for a humorous women’s advice books), and Valerie Mendes (director Sam Mendes’ mother and acclaimed YA Novelist in the UK doing her first adult novel). Today’s deals at PM also record his sale of […]
Rights News: Canada's Cooke Takes Over Rights Sales for Random Canada and McClelland & Stewart
Agents and business partners Dean Cooke and Sally Harding are creating a new company, the Cooke Agency International, to sell rights for Canadian publishers and agencies. Sub rights director Suzanne Brandreth will oversee daily operations from a new office, with Cooke and Harding working for both the new company and their existing Cooke Agency. Random House Canada will use the new operation to sell “the majority of our subsidiary rights,” including foreign rights, permissions, and domestic book club sales. Random House Canada ceo Brad Martin says “the reality of our business is that we can no longer financially justify maintaining […]