Robin Richardson will join Tommy Nelson as senior director of marketing starting December 18. Previously she was vice president of digital for RFD-TV. The Noble Prize site has posted the text of Olga Tokarczuk‘s Nobel Lecture. The Book Industry Study Group released their 2019 update to the BISCAC codes (the detailed genre/subject codes that tell trading partners and their machines how to categorize your books). Penguin Random House ceo Markus Dohle shares his annual year-end letter of thanks to company staff. Among the company’s notable accomplishments in 2019 was a string of acquisitions and investments: “As one major priority, we long […]
Authors
Briefs
Film/TV Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, through their company Escapist Fare, have signed a multi-year overall deal with CBS TV Studios. That deal starts with a limited series adaptation of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay for Showtime, but includes a number of other projects in development. Akiva Goldsman and Alex Kurtzman will executive produce Kavalier & Clay, and Paramount Television will produce (since Paramount Pictures owns the film/TV rights). Initiatives This year James Patterson will give holiday gifts totaling over $200,000 to Barnes & Noble booksellers around the country as well, in addition to his annual holiday bonuses […]
People, Etc.
Heather Kelly has joined Abrams Children’s as senior designer. Previously she was senior designer at Sterling Children’s. At HG Literary, Soumeya Bendimerad Roberts was promoted to vp, foreign rights, and Rhea Lyons was named director, film/TV rights. Controversial Nobel prize laureate Peter Handke‘s originating publisher Suhrkamp prepared a lengthy document, “intended mainly for the benefit of foreign publishers of Handke’s work who had found themselves, like Suhrkamp, in an uncomfortable position as a result of Handke’s record of downplaying Serb atrocities against Muslims in the Bosnia war.” But “Suhrkamp’s rambling defense has not received positive reviews from” the German and Austrian […]
Penguin Children’s Acquires Eric Carle’s Rights
Penguin Children’s announced on Tuesday that as of January 1, 2020 it will acquire Eric Carle LLC, which owns the intellectual property rights to the author and illustrator’s over 70 children’s books, as well as his licensing business. Carle, 90, has sold over 145 million copies of his books worldwide by their report (including more than 50 million copies of The Very Hungry Caterpillar alone). The acquisition was made by Penguin Random House US ceo Madeline McIntosh and Penguin Children’s president Jen Loja, and starting in January business operations for what has previously been the Eric Carle Studio will be […]
Hachette Book Group Fends Off A Justice Department Attempt to Unmask Anonymous
The head of the Department of Justice’s Civil Division Joseph Hunt wrote to Hachette Book Group general counsel Carol Ross, as well as literary agents Matt Latimer and Keith Urbahn at Javelin, trying to unmask the author of the forthcoming book A WARNING, by Anonymous. The DOJ wants to know if the author is potentially subject to pre-publication review as part of their Federal employment. But as has been reinforced in recent instances, from Edward Snowden’s book (which the government is suing over) to Amaryllis Fox’s book (in which so far they appear to have given her a pass for […]
Holt and Holtzbrinck Agree Not to Pay Snowden Anything, for A While
Publisher Henry Holt and two German-based Holtzbrinck companies agreed in an order submitted along with the US Attorney General’s office to a Federal Court in Virginia that they would not pay out any proceeds to Edward Snowden or his representatives earned by his book Permanent Record prior to April 1, 2020. (For now that simply aligns with a normal royalty accounting schedule, though that is not mentioned in the order.) The submitted file does indicate that Holt licensed rights to the book from the German-based HIM Holtzbrinck 37, which is the originating contractual party with Snowden.