Doubleday unveiled the cover of Dan Brown‘s May 14 release Inferno on the Today Show this morning. ‘”Inferno takes place in Italy and was inspired by Dante’s iconic 14th century poem of the same name. The cover features a portrait of Dante against the city of Florence, as well as Dante’s famous nine rings of hell.” Apparently Audible has not had a dedicated app for Apple’s iPad line, even though “more than 20 percent of Audible customers already use Audible’s iPhone app on the iPad. They have addressed that with the release of a new app optimized for iPads, and […]
Audio
Bresnick To Take Over for Weil; Blackstone Sold to AudioGO
Paul Bresnick of the Paul Bresnick Agency has a deal in principle to assume control of the Wendy Weil Agency on behalf of the late agent’s estate, he wrote to clients, “to ensure that Wendy’s clients will continue to be represented with the highest professional standards for which the agency has earned its sterling reputation.” Bresnick has started informing authors while the details are finalized “so that there will be no break in the service you’ve come to expect from the agency and your best interests will continue to be protected,” he wrote in a letter shown to us. He […]
People, Etc.
Kevin Doughten will join Crown as senior editor on September 24, focusing on non-fiction. He was most recently an editor at Viking. Olga Rogozina has joined the Van Lear Agency in Moscow as both a literary agent and contracts manager. Previously she was foreign rights manager at Astrel. Founder of Chicago’s 10-store Beck’s Bookstores, Bob Beck, 91, died last week at Northwestern Hospital. “Today, a marketing major would say he had a business plan. Back then, it was called an angle. He sold books at Beck’s for less than the college bookstores charged, and he paid more when the used […]
More from Amazon: Merging the Digital/Audio Reading Experience, Kindle Serials
Amazon’s new device launch on Wednesday garnered the most media attention, but the company also introduced some intriguing new features that merge or break apart reading experiences — while potentially raising rights-related questions. People have long speculated that it would be great to “sync” ebooks and digital audio recordings so you can go back and forth between reading and listening without losing your place, and Amazon has built that with what they call Whispersync for Voice. It offers what they call a “continuous reading experience” between digital and audio editions, in which a customer can start reading one edition and continue in […]
Initiatives: Faber In Audio Co-Venture with Canongate; Hay House Enrolls Bloggers
In the UK, Faber has entered in an audio co-publishing venture with Canongate (which acquired audio publisher CSA in 2010). Canongate will produce and sell audio editions of up to about a dozen Faber titles annually, the Bookseller reports. (Faber will continue to publish audio versions of their poetry books independently.) In the US, Hay House has started a blogger review program, BookNook, that is similar to Thomas Nelson’s Book Sneeze initiative. They aim to create “one central place for bloggers to share their thoughts and experiences about Hay House products,” providing free review copies in exchange for “an honest […]
Audible Launches $20 Million Fund for Authors, and Services to Promote their Audiobooks
Audible.com is announcing a fund comprising $20 million to be paid out directly to authors (and not shared with publishers), accompanied by a set of marketing and merchandising services. In fact, the fund is a reward for enrolling in the Audible Author Services program. The company says “the honorarium is a direct payment from us to you, a way for us to reward you for promoting your work.” Any author who registers and has an audiobook available via Audible in the US or UK becomes eligible to share in the fund, which pays the author an additional $1 “honorarium” for […]