Mystery book editor for Thomas Dunne Books Ruth Cavin, 92, died yesterday morning. She is remembered by longtime family friend Mike Shatzkin on his blog, who notes “what is unique about Ruth’s career is that she didn’t become an editor until she was past her 60th birthday and didn’t start her more than two decades at St. Martin’s until she was 70.” Also remarkable is Macmillan’s efforts to help Cavin keep coming to the office.Post Orson Scott Card‘s website reports that he suffered a “mild stroke” on New Year’s “He is now back home, retraining his brain so that the […]
Authors
Florida Arrests Self-Published Pedophilia Author on Obscenity Charges
Phillip Greaves was extradited from Colorado to Florida, where he faces third-degree felony obscenity charges for mailing his self-published book The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure. Florida Sheriff Grady Judd says, “I was outraged by the content. It was clearly a manifesto on how to sexually batter children … You just can’t believe how absolutely disgusting it was.” Greaves mailed a book to undercover detectives, and said it was his last copy. The volume was the focus on protests when it was found for sale on Amazon last month. But as John Jay College of Criminal Justice professor Dennis […]
Amazon Provides Authors with Limited Nielsen BookScan Data
As of today Amazon is letting authors enrolled in their “Author Central” program (e.g. FiledBy for Amazon) access a small window of Nielsen BookScan sales data for their own books. Needless to say, the offer is a major inducement for authors not already enrolled to sign up for the Author Central. The program shows the most recent four weeks of sales as tracked by Nielsen, on a week-by-week basis. It also provides geographical breakdowns, showing the same limited data set according to local DMA markets. They provide a nice visual national mapping of the data that Nielsen itself provides to […]
Quotable Views: Agent Emanuel, and Author O’Dell
Tough-talking William Morris Endeavor Entertainment co-CEO Ari Emanuel was interviewed at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, covered by paidContent, where he set himself (and the agency) up as the next Andrew Wylie. After an underwhelming first pass at literary representation when Endeavor as on its own, “Emanuel said one of the motivations behind merging Endeavor with William Morris last year was to get his hands on the book business, where Endeavor had no skin in the game. The reason it’s so appetizing, he said, is because it’s ripe for disintermediation. “‘I definitely don’t think I have to go […]
“Big Jim” Frey’s Book Factory Wants to Pay You $500
Early last week we carried a deal report from YA packager Full Fathom Five and today we’re treated to two profiles of the company, run by James Frey. Odds are you’ll feel the same way about Frey’s latest venture as you did about his previous efforts. His co-authored sci-fi YA “Lorien Legacies” series that started with this summer’s I AM NUMBER FOUR, published under the pseudonym Pittacus Lore to unspectacular sales, is just the beginning of the output from the Frey Factory. The book’s real prospects lay in the film version that DreamWorks has fast-tracked (the book was saleable only […]
People, Etc.
IDPF executive director Michael Smith will leave the organization shortly “to pursue other opportunities in the digital book space.” He will stay on during the search procress and transition to a replacement, which the organization hopes “will be completed by early January 2011.” At Random House UK, Cornerstone managing director Susan Sandon, Ebury managing director Fiona MacIntyre, Random House UK Children’s managing director Philippa Dickinson, and human resources director Neil Morrison have all been appointed to the company’s main board. CEO Gail Rebuck says in the announcement “this new structure ensures that we harness the strengths and talents at Board […]