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
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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 […]
Florida Attorney General Sues Writer's Literary Agency and Robert Fletcher
The state’s crimes division “received more than 175 complaints from around the world claiming Fletcher and his associates, who claimed to act as literary agents and publishers, allegedly collected money from victims anxious to see their work published.” The lawsuit seeks injunctive relief as well as full restitution. According to the suit, “few books were ever sold as a result of the efforts of Fletcher’s companies.” He “used more than 20 websites and related companies to collect funds from potential authors, but misled victims about fees, costs, and promised results.” The filing asserts that “usually each prospective author was good […]
NYT On eBook Release Timing–Ditto
The NYT follows-up the WSJ piece on Sourcebooks’ decision to postpone the ebook release of their new hardcover YA novel Bran Hambric. As we noted in our write-up on Monday, the Times reiterates that every house with a major frontlist fiction release is debating whether to delay publication in ebook form (and some are contemplating much broader shifts in the timing of their ebook releases). Since no one is talking about it on the record, the Times story doesn’t add much that you don’t already know. Interesting, in a quirky way, is this paragraph: “For now, Amazon is taking a […]