Elin Hilderbrand tells the AP that she plans to retire from writing novels in 2024, indicating that she wants to stop while her work is in demand. “A lot of people will follow a writer for a long time and then inevitably they will turn out a book that is not as good as the others,” Hilderbrand told the AP last month. “I’ve always said to myself, ‘I will not do that. I will make each book better and better or different in some way.’ I feel myself coming to my natural end of my material.” While Hilderbrand will definitely […]
Authors
Forthcoming: Smith Due In November
Will Smith‘s book, written with Mark Manson, will be titled Will and published by Penguin Press on November 9. Katie Couric will have a live tour promoting Going There, publishing October 26. Produced by Live Nation, the tour opens at the Orpheum Theatre in Boston on October 28 and will visit 11 cities.
Bolton Gets to Keep the Money
Memorialized in a brief filing with the Federal Court of Wednesday, the Biden administration’s Department of Justice dropped the Trump administration’s witch hunt against former National Security Advisor John Bolton. They dismissed the civil lawsuit looking to recover Bolton’s earnings from publishing THE ROOM WHERE IT HAPPENED without formal, written clearance from the government. And according to Bolton’s lawyer, the government also dropped a grand jury investigation over the book’s publication. Previously, US District Judge Royce C. Lamberth had indicated a strong inclination to support the government’s case, though full evidence had not yet been presented. Earlier this year, Lamberth […]
Legal
A lawsuit in the UK has revealed that Neil Blair at The Blair Partnership paid his former employer Christopher Little £10 million as a settlement fee in January 2012. The payment came after Blair set up his own agency in 2011 and took over representation of JK Rowling. The filing also indicates that Blair borrowed the money for the lump sum payment from Rowling. The only previous report of the settlement was a Daily Mail account in February 2012, with a statement from statement from reputation and crisis-management firm Project Associates indicating that Rowling and Little “have reached an amicable agreement […]
(Limited) Distribution
Dave Eggers’ THE EVERY, a follow-up to THE CIRCLE, will publish on October 5 in a limited-distribution hardcover that will be sold exclusively through independent bookstores and McSweeney’s website. Eggers said in an email, “I don’t like bullies. Amazon has been kicking sand in the face of independent bookstores for decades now.” Vintage will publish trade paperback and ebook editions on November 16, available through all retailers. The strategy means that links to pre-order the trade paperback and ebook are available widely already — but since the limited-distribution hardcover isn’t available through an ONIX feed, independent bookstores’ websites don’t have […]
Pence and Conway Are On, Cohen Book Is Off, and S&S Will Distribute Blake Bailey
The New Republic reports on last week’s town hall meeting at Simon & Schuster, at which the standoff continued between management and a good portion of the employees over the planned publication of books by former vice president Mike Pence and Kellyanne Conway. Based on a recording of the meeting, the article buries the lede: CEO Jonathan Karp reportedly told employees that Conway’s deal is “contingent on being truthful” (their line, not his). For Pence there is a softer standard: “His agent insisted there ‘would be nothing discriminatory’ in the book and that the vice president had promised to be […]