As the NYT reported over the weekend Vintage bought world English print, digital, and audio rights to republish EL James’ erotic romance trilogy 50 SHADES OF GREY, which has sold more than 250,000 units (predominantly in ebook format) and has become an increasingly prominent topic of conversation over the past few weeks. The republished ebook edition is available now, priced at $9.99, with trade paperbacks to follow in early April, priced at $15.95. Foreign rights auctions have concluded or are underway in a number of territories as well. In a telephone interview, Vintage evp and publisher Anne Messitte told us […]
Authors
People, Etc.: A CFO for BN
Barnes & Noble has hired Michael P. Huseby as chief financial officer, and he will start work tomorrow. As for the ongoing realignment of the company’s businesses, they say Huseby will “lead the company’s finance organization, aligning the company’s finance and business strategies, optimizing the company’s capital structure and helping to scale the rapidly growing digital business.” From 2004 to 2011 was evp and cfo at Cablevision, and prior to that he was evp and cfo at another cable operator, Charter Communications. Alan Lindstrom has been acting cfo for the past five months. Paula Munier has joined Talcott Notch Literary […]
Pearlman, Jasanoff Among NBCC Award Winners
The National Book Critics Circle Awards went to: Binocular Vision, by Edith Pearlman (Fiction) Liberty’s Exiles, by Maya Jasanoff (General Nonfiction) George F. Kennan: An American Life by John Lewis Gaddis (Biography) The Memory Place, by Mira Bartok (Autobiography) Space, in Chains, by Laura Kasischke (Poetry) Otherwise Known As The Human Condition, by Geoff Dyer (Criticism) Release
People, Etc.
Michael Taeckens will join Graywolf Press as marketing director, effective April 16. He spent the past eleven years at Algonquin, most recently as online and paperback marketing director. Casey Ebro has joined McGraw-Hill Professional as editor. She was previously an editor at Arcade Publishing. In France, Gregory Messina has joined the Place des Editeurs group as rights director, reporting to Anne-Laure Aymeric. He will sell rights for Belfond, Presses de la Cité, Hors Collection, Le Pré aux Clercs and Omnibus. Previously, he sold rights at Editions Robert Laffont. At Chronicle, Jeff Wiebe has been promoted to associate director of operations. The 2011 […]
In Upholding Decision, Appellate Court Agrees Lampack Can’t Claim Commission On Grimes Option Book
On March 1, the Appellate Division of New York State Supreme Court unanimously upheld a 2010 court decision that ruled the Peter Lampack Agency could not collect commissions on a novel by former client Martha Grimes that was an option book on a prior agreement, but whose terms were agreed upon with her publisher Penguin under a separate contract. (For more information on the original case, click here; Grimes and Penguin also recently settled a related suit with respect to legal fees and unpaid royalties as well.) The court said the contracts at issue in the case between Grimes and […]
Backlist eBooks by John Updike and Judy Blume Coming Soon From Random House
Random House will release a number of backlist ebook editions by two of the company’s flagship authors, John Updike and Judy Blume. With respect to Updike, who died in 2009, “the entire backlist” will appear soon in digital format, the majority for the first time. (You may recall that Updike’s Rabbit Angstrom tetralogy appeared briefly as ebooks under the Odyssey Editions banner, the fledgling ebook company launched in 2010 by the Wylie Agency, and the Random House took over ebook publication.) Meanwhile, Random House Children’s will release ebook editions in North America of 10 of Blume’s books for children and […]