Bestselling mystery writer Martha Grimes has been involved in a series of court appearances related to her termination of representation by the Peter Lampack Agency (PLA) in 2007 after more than 11 years as a client. In the latest development, Grimes filed suit on August 12 in a New York Federal Court against her longtime publisher Penguin, alleging that the company materially breached its publishing contract with Grimes by not paying her $200,000 in advances and by setting-off legal expenses against her earnings in excess of what was provided for in their contract. She also alleges that Penguin “put its own […]
Authors
W. Paul Young Signs With Hachette For Next Book After Settling ‘The Shack’ Lawsuit
Hachette Book Group has signed William Paul Young for an untitled follow up to his multi-million selling novel THE SHACK, for which the publisher’s Faith Words imprint handled marketing, manufacturing, sales and distribution since mid-2008 after the original edition from Windblown Media sold over a million copies. The news comes shortly after Young reached a final settlement agreement with Windblown Media founders Wayne Jacobsen and Brad Cummings on undisclosed terms on August 12, a deal that had been in the works for some time. (Young had alleged accounting improprieties, and Jacobsen and Cummings counter-sued, seeking joint copyright in the book.) […]
S&S Will Handle Print Sales & Distribution For John Locke
Self-published thriller writer John Locke, who sold more than a million copies of his Donovan Creed novels primarily via Amazon (helped in part by the 99 cent ebook price of each series title) has found a large publisher to back him on the print side. Starting in February 2012, Simon & Schuster will handle sales and distribution for the print editions of Locke’s books under the banner of John Locke Books. The deal will allow Locke’s novels – the eight books already released, as well as newer titles to come — to be more widely available in brick-and-mortar stores (including […]
NY Magazine’s Fall Book Picks
In this year’s edition of their fall books preview New York Magazine lists their “most anticipated” books for the season: The Art of Fielding, Chad Harbach Habibi, Craig Thompson Parallel Stories, Peter Nadas The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern Lives Other Than My Own, by Emmanuel Carrère Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius, by Sylvia Nasar Life Itself, by Roger Ebert The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, by Steven Pinker The Marriage Plot, by Jeffrey Eugenides Zone One, by Colson Whitehead 1Q84, by Haruki Murakami Blue Nights, by Joan Didion The Exegesis of Philip K. […]
People, Awards, Etc.
At the Hugo Awards this weekend, Connie Willis won Best Novel for BLACKOUT/ALL CLEAR (Ballantine Spectra). Full List of winners The winners of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize were: Fiction: Tatiana Soli, THE LOTUS EATERS Non-Fiction: Hilary Spurling, BURYING THE BONES: Pearl Buck in China Guardian President Obama‘s summer reading list was released by the White House late last week and included two books he purchased at Bunch of Grapes bookstore in Martha’s Vineyard and three books he brought with him: The Bayou Trilogy, by Daniel Woodrell Rodin’s Debutante, by Ward Just To the End of the Land, by […]
Imprints: Night Shade Shuts Down Pugilist Press; Freehand Books Freezes Acquisitions
Night Shade Books has shut down its dark literary fiction imprint Pugilist Press, set to launch sometime this year, and the imprint’s editor-in-chief Juliet Ulman has left the company. Night Shade publisher Jason Williams said in an email that he shut the imprint down in order to concentrate on the company’s core business. “We started working on Pugilist at the beginning of 2010, when things were much more stable than they are now. In light of the current highly unpredictable and unstable publishing environment, launching a new imprint seems like poor reasoning. Especially a literary imprint, which is probably the […]