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 […]
Authors
People, Awards, Etc.
In other personnel news, Jack Palmer has been promoted to publicity and marketing manager and Molly Cavanaugh has joined as publishing assistant at The Experiment. Previously Cavanaugh worked part-time at the University of Chicago Press until her graduation from the school this past June. Michelle Rafferty has joined Soho Press as publicist. Previously she was a publicist at Oxford University Press. The CWA announced its shortlists for a number of categories, including: CWA Gold Dagger: Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin Snowdrops by AD Miller The End of the Wasp Season by Denise Mina The Lock Artist by Steve […]
Legal News: Another Appeals Case Rules First Sale Doctrine Is US-Only; ‘The Shack’ Lawsuit Finally Settled
Just a few weeks after the Ninth Circuit ruled in a case featuring Costco’s sale of imported Omega watches that the first sale doctrine does not apply to imported goods, another ruling this week from the Second Circuit more forcefully confirms this conclusion – and this time it involves book sales. In a 2-1 decision, the court said Supap Kirtsaeng violated Wiley’s copyrights when he sold cheap foreign editions of the publishers’ textbooks in the US because first sale doctrine does not apply to books sold outside of the country. Any other conclusion would undercut a law already on the books […]
Self-Help Bestseller Tim Ferriss Sells New Book To Kirshbaum’s Amazon Imprint
Some days the biggest news happens in the deals section, and today is no exception with Amazon’s announcement that the still-untitled imprint headed by Larry Kirshbaum made its first buy, acquiring Timothy Ferriss’ latest self-help opus, THE FOUR-HOUR CHEF, for publication next year. (Our deals database has more information on the terms.) Previously Ferriss was published by Crown, and both of his earlier books, THE FOUR-HOUR WORKWEEK and THE FOUR-HOUR BODY, have been on the NYT bestseller lists for 84 and 33 weeks, respectively. Amazon’s release ceded most of the “future of publishing” rhetoric to Ferriss, who was quoted as […]
Forbes’ Highest Paid Authors, 2011 Edition
Their methodology may not track with actual earnings figures (though we understand there have been some changes to make the tally more accurate as compared to previous years) Forbes has released their new list of guesses at how much the most successful authors made over the 12 months ending June 1: James Patterson ($84 million) Danielle Steel ($35 million) Stephen King ($28 million) Janet Evanovich ($22 million) Stephenie Meyer ($21 million) Rick Riordan ($21 million) Dean Koontz ($19 million) John Grisham ($18 million) Jeff Kinney ($17 million) Nicholas Sparks ($16 million) Forbes
eNews: FTC Settles Privacy Concerns With Children’s App Developer; Claim That Next Sony Reader Will Be Bundled With Potter eBooks; And More
The Federal Trade Commission has settled with W3 Innovations, which owns children’s app developer Broken Thumbs, for $50,000, after the developer was charged with violating the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act by collecting information from children under the age of 13 without their parents’ permission. (Several apps produced by Broken Thumbs were downloaded more than 50,000 times.) FTC chairman Jon Liebovitz said in a statement: “The F.T.C.’s COPPA Rule requires parental notice and consent before collecting children’s personal information online, whether through a Web site or a mobile app. Companies must give parents the opportunity to make smart choices when […]