Former co-founder of The Writers Coffee Shop Jennifer Pedroza is moving closer to receiving her one-quarter share of The Writers Coffee Shop’s profits from the Fifty Shades trilogy, though the process has been underway for many months and still is not finalized. In a Texas court hearing on Wednesday, Judge Susan McCoy heard from accountants hired by both Pedroza and defendant Amanda Hayward that 25 percent of TWCS’s profits would equal approximately $10.7 million. A jury ruled in Pedroza’s favor in February, and starting in April, Judge McCoy has been trying to get Hayward to deposit $10 million in an escrow […]
Authors
Author Solutions Lawsuit Settled in New York; Indiana Suits Consolidated
Once Judge Denise Cote denied class certification in July to the group of plaintiffs who filed suit against Author Solutions more than two years ago alleging fraud, violation of consumer protection acts, and unjust enrichment, it was only a matter of time before that version of the case reached a natural end. On August 12, Judge Cote issued a one-page order of discontinuance indicating the suit had been settled by the two standalone plaintiffs the prior day, with the case “discontinued without any costs to any party and without prejudice to restoring action to this Court’s calendar if the application…is made within […]
Briefs
Liz Esman has joined Crown as senior publicist, Crown, Hogarth, Broadway Books and Tim Duggan Books. Previously she was a publicist at HarperCollins. In addition, Morgan Carattini has been promoted to publishing manager for Crown, Archetype, Hogarth, Broadway Books, Tim Duggan Books, and Three Rivers Press. The Ransom Center at the University of Texas-Austin has acquired Kazuo Ishiguro‘s archive for a reported $1.1 million. Among the unpublished works included in the archive are an early pulp western, as well as a short novel called To Remember a Summer By. Entertainment Weekly has an excerpt of THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER’S […]
Surprise Bestseller: Self-Published Picture Book that Prompts Yawns to Put Kids to Sleep
Swedish psychologist Carl-Johan Forssen Ehrlin’s crude-looking self-published picture book The Rabbit Who Wants To Fall Asleep: A New Way Of Getting Children To Sleep finds itself at the top of Amazon‘s bestseller list more than a year-and-a-half after publication. It seems to have caught on in the UK first, drawing media attention that spread to the US and has lifted sales here within the last week. (It’s currently No. 1 on Amazon’s hourly list and No. 30 at Barnes & Noble, but until recently was selling just low single digits per week according to Nielsen Bookscan.) Director of Books and Entertainment […]
Monday Briefs
The big weekend read was the NYT piece with allegations about Amazon‘s “purposeful Darwinism” towards its employees. Jeff Bezos sent an email to all employees — and thus the world — saying, “Even if it’s rare or isolated, our tolerance for any such lack of empathy needs to be zero.” Bezos agreed that “anyone working in a company that really is like the one described in the NYT would be crazy to stay. I know I would leave such a company.” But “Hopefully, you’re having fun working with a bunch of brilliant teammates, helping invent the future, and laughing along […]
Hamilton Parts Ways With Minotaur Weeks Before Publication Date
Edgar Award-winning author Steve Hamilton is parting ways with Minotaur Books, his publisher for more than seventeen years, less than two months before the scheduled September 29 release date of his next thriller, THE SECOND LIFE OF NICK MASON. After issuing a terse announcement to various trade publications and accounts saying “publication had been cancelled”, Minotaur spokesperson Tracey Guest added in an updated statement: “After many years of publishing Steve Hamilton, unfortunately SMP has had a parting of the ways and will not be moving forward with the publication of THE SECOND LIFE OF NICK MASON. We wish Steve all […]