When Lawrence Summers leaves his position as director of the National Economic Council and returns to Cambridge at the beginning of next year, he is expected to start work right away on the first of two books he owes Farrar, Straus. Summers made a deal with Farrar in 2007 for books on education and economics. Originally planning to begin with the education book (following his controversial tenure as president of Harvard), the publisher tells us that he will now write about economics first. Scholastic announced a new version of their 39 Clues franchise, The 39 Clues; Cahills vs. Vespers. The […]
Authors
People, Etc.
Seth Fishman is joining The Gernert Company as a literary agent. He was most recently at Sterling Lord Literistic, where he worked since 2005. At Profile Books in the UK, Daniel Crewe has been promoted to publisher. The Guardian has an interesting interview with Random UK ceo Gail Rebuck who is careful and measured in her responses–rightfully so, since the paper strains to misconstrue the piece with the headline “How Gail Rebuck turned Tony Blair’s book into a bestseller.” (Rebuck deflects one line of questioning by replying, “We’re not going to go there. You can ask away and I’ll wander […]
A Bestselling Business Author Who Makes His Money from Traditionally Published Book
Author of The Four-Hour Workweek Timothy Ferris offers his own detailed analysis of how most authors currently make money from their books, and includes some sensible advice for those considering their options. In his case, though his book has ranked high in the Kindle store and is one of the ten most highlighted Kindle books, on his end of 2009 royalty statement, ebooks comprised a grand total of 1.6 percent of units sold. He does know people who publish digital-only quite successfully–but “the downside is that you need to be a world-class marketer and understand affiliate and CPA advertising better […]
Forbes’ Highest-Paid Authors
While you may not have a lot of inherent faith in their methodology, 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 ($70 million)Stephenie Meyer ($40 million)Stephen King ($34 million)Danielle Steel ($32 million)Ken Follett ($20 million)Dean Koontz ($18 million)Janet Evanovich ($16 million)John Grisham ($15 million)Nicholas Sparks ($14 million)JK Rowling ($10 million) Forbes
eNews: Houghton Negotiates with Pat Conroy to Allow Release of Open Road Backlist eBooks, and More
The stalemate over electronic rights to some of Pat Conroy’s backlist titles has been resolved and Open Road is going ahead with ebook release of the titles that they announced almost a year ago. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt spokesperson Lori Glazer tells the AP, “in this instance we negotiated an agreed-upon separation of print from electronic, to our mutual satisfaction.” Arthur Klebanoff at Rosetta Books, who had published an ebook version of The Prince of Tides, says: “Did I want to renew this license? The answer is ‘Yes.’ But until the arrival of the Kindle, you had a tiny, tiny marketplace. […]
Hitchens Interviewed
The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg conducts a video interview with Christopher Hitchens at his home in Washington, DC. Hitchens comments, “there are bad days, and there are worse days.” He reveals that the esophogeal cancer for which he is being treated has spread to his lymph nodes. “It’s not a good cancer to get…. I would be a very lucky person to live another five years.”Video