Sara Sargent moves to Random House Children’s as senior executive editor. (She was previously executive editor for Harper Children’s.) Also, Hanna Glidden has been promoted to associate director of pub ops business process and support. At Berkley, Kristine Swartz has been promoted to editor and Sarah Blumenstock has been promoted to associate editor. Julia Ringo has been promoted to associate editor at Farrar, Straus. Roisin Davis has joined Haymarket Books as director of foreign rights. She will also continue as associate agent at Roam Agency. In the UK, Jenny Lord has been promoted to nonfiction publisher for Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Alan Samson expands his role to […]
Authors
Mystery Writers of America Withdraws Fairstein’s Grand Master Award
The Mystery Writers of America board “has decided to withdraw the Linda Fairstein Grand Master award” that was announced earlier this week, on Tuesday. They note in a statement, “After profound reflection, the Board has decided that MWA cannot move forward with an award that lacks the support of such a large percentage of our members…. We realize that this action will be unsatisfactory to many. We apologize for any pain and disappointment this situation has caused.” The move came after “the MWA membership began to express concern over the inclusion of Linda Fairstein as a Grand Master, citing controversy in […]
People, Etc.: Obamas, and More
Michelle Obama‘s BECOMING was the second-best-selling book in the UK in its opening week, selling 64,732 hardcovers as tracked by Nielsen Bookscan UK. (That’s a little better than Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury in its best week in the UK, when it sold almost 60,000 hardcovers.) You may recall that it was initially expected that former president Barack Obama‘s book might be published first, though that notion did not last long. Indeed he told the audience at the Obama Foundation Summit on Monday in Chicago, “Go buy her book right now. This is causing some strain in our marriage. The […]
Oprah Picks “Becoming,” And One Store Books An Appearance
Oprah Winfrey is giving Michelle Obama’s BECOMING an extra boost, picking it for her occasional book club. “This book is everything you wanted to know and so much you didn’t even know you wanted to know,” Winfrey said. “I believe it’s going to spark within you the desire to think about your own becoming.” She added, “It’s so well-written I can hear her voice; I can hear her expressions; I can feel her emotion. What she allows us to see is how she was able to discover, define and then refine her voice.” Winfrey has taped an interview with Obama, […]
Amazon’s CreateSpace Continues to Grow, Devour Self-Published Print Market
Bowker released their annual statistics for 2017 charting the release of self-published books that carry ISBNs issued by the company (and as we know, a large number of self-published titles, particularly ebooks, do not carry ISBNs at all). The report has essentially become a chronicle of Amazon’s steady march to dominate print self-publishing in the same way that their KDP has long dominated ebook self-publishing. For 2017, there were 879,587 self-published print titles that carried ISBNs — and 751,924 of them came from CreateSpace (which is now being merged with KDP), comprising over 85 percent of the total. CreateSpace’s output grew by […]
Live Nation Announces Michelle Obama Tour Dates
Live Nation and Crown announced a 10-city big-venue tour for Michelle Obama that coincides with the release of her memoir BECOMING. The tour begins in Chicago on publication day, November 13, and finishes in Dallas on December 17. Tickets go on sale September 21, and there will be “a limited number of VIP meet and greet packages” offered. In answering our query, Crown says that “our plan is to have locally-based booksellers selling books at each event venue.”