NPD BookScan looked at sales data for books that have been removed from shelves or publicly challenged, finding that media attention converts into sales spikes — though the absolute numbers range widely. “When a book finds itself at the top of a national news story because it has received a challenge, sales go up,” said Kristen McLean, books industry analyst for NPD. “But that doesn’t translate into an overall sales boost for other banned books. It’s the immediacy of the story, and viewers’ reaction to it, that drives increased sales. It is also likely that many consumers don’t know what […]
Books In the News
Business: Quarto Completes Capital Raise, More Dirt, and Australia’s Co-op Stores to Close
As expected, Quarto completed its secondary share offer, raising $16.7 million in net proceeds. They say existing shareholders took 57 percent of the new shares, with the Giunti family taking a significant stake and CK Lau filling the rest of the offer. The Giuntis did acquire 6.2 million shares as planned. (Update: It was confirmed later in a filing at the end of February that Lau acquired approximately 9.4 million of the new shares, boosting the stake he controls to 16.27 million shares, or 39.8 percent of the company.) Separately, Australian online bookseller Booktopia has bought the assets of the […]
Oprah, B&N Choose American Dirt for Book Clubs as Controversy Continues
Oprah picked Jeanine Cummins’ American Dirt as her new book club selection, with the book to be discussed starting January 27. At the same time, Barnes & Noble also chose the book as their February Book Club pick. The selections follow a controversy online sparked by conflicting reviews published in the NYT from critic Parul Sehgal and author Lauren Groff, the amount of press the paper has given the book, and assertions by some in the Latinx community that the book is a work of appropriation. (While it’s well known in the trade, at some point it will be pointed […]
Former Intelligence Agency Employees Sue Over Prepublication Review
Five former employees of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Department of Defense, have sued their former employers to contest the government’s prepublication approval requirements. Former intelligence employees are required to submit manuscripts for review and obtain government approval before they can publish, which the plaintiffs call an “unconstitutional censorship regime” that “cannot be squared with the First Amendment,” according to the complaint, filed in Federal District Court in Maryland. The suit declares itself “a challenge to a far-reaching system of prior restraints that suppresses a broad swath of constitutionally protected speech, […]
NYT Updates Dan Mallory Story With Details From Author’s Outlines
The New York Times’ February 14 story about allegations that Dan Mallory’s bestselling The Woman in the Window might have plagiarized Sarah Denzil’s Saving April received a prominent update on Tuesday. The revision, which “include[s] additional relevant information that Mr. Mallory’s lawyer and agent provided to The Times after publication,” contains information about initial outlines Mallory created. The update was acknowledged at the top of Wednesday’s Books Briefing newsletter, in addition to the customary note at the bottom of the piece on the NYT website. A person connected to Mallory told PL that the NYT did not seek out the […]
Thousands of Books Set to Enter the Public Domain on January 1
Santa has one more delivery on the way: On January 1, 2019, all works published in the United States in 1923 will enter the public domain. The list of books, movies, and songs numbers more than 1000, based on research conducted by Duke Law School’s Center for the Public Domain — and includes work by authors such as Robert Frost, Aldous Huxley, and Edith Wharton. This is the first mass-release of works into the public’s hands in 21 years, thanks to a provision of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act that froze the release of works created prior to […]