Setting McClellan Free Public Affairs moved up the release date of Scott McClellan’s book WHAT HAPPENED: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception following the media storm earlier this week and Perseus ceo David Steinberger says the point-of-sale movement on Wednesday and Thursday was as strong as he has seen for any title from the company. The first printing of 65,000 copies is quickly being supplemented with another 100,000 copies delivering in two installments. Flat and What Else? With Thomas Friedman’s morning keynote appearance at BEA it would be poetic to characterize BEA as HOT, FLAT AND […]
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Lunch for Thursday, May 29
BEA Begins In keeping with the mellow image of Los Angeles, activity in the LA Convention Center proper is low-key today, with a full roster of educational programming playing to a rather light group of attendees, as the ABA’s educational day convenes off-site at their official hotel. Most of our coverage will focus on forums that we’re videotaping to play on Publishers Lunch TV, but right now I’m sitting in an interesting interview between Wired contributing editor and author of Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd is Driving the Future of Business Jeff Howe, and Clay Shirky, author or […]
Lunch for Wednesday, May 28
McLellan’s Book Criticizes Bush Former White House press secretary Scott McLellan’s book WHAT HAPPENED: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception makes headlines after Politico and then the NYT purchased embargoed copies in advance of next week’s release. Politico calls it a “surprisingly scathing memoir” that says Bush “veered terribly off course” and was not “open and forthright on Iraq.” President Bush “convinces himself to believe what suits his needs at the moment” and has engaged in “self-deception,” the NYT writes, and he says “White House officials deceived him about the administration’s involvement in the leaking of […]
Lunch for Tuesday, May 27
Another Hyperion Departure as Dorman Goes Back to Viking Pam Dorman is leaving the Voice imprint she helped to start up at Hyperion in 2006 to return to Viking Penguin — where she worked for 19 years — to serve as publisher of the eponymous Pamela Dorman Books. She will report to Viking president Clare Ferraro. Dorman says in the announcement, “I am delighted to be rejoining my colleagues at Viking Penguin in this exciting new capacity, and look forward to building a strong, up-market and talented group of authors in this new imprint.” At Hyperion, Barbara Jones, has been […]
Lunch for Friday, May 23
Microsoft Pulls Plug on Book Search Initiative Microsoft just announced on their site: “Today we informed our partners that we are ending the Live Search Books and Live Search Academic projects and that both sites will be taken down next week. Books and scholarly publications will continue to be integrated into our Search results, but not through separate indexes. “This also means that we are winding down our digitization initiatives, including our library scanning and our in-copyright book programs. We recognize that this decision comes as disappointing news to our partners, the publishing and academic communities, and Live Search users. […]
Lunch for Thursday, May 22
Sales Slow at BN Barnes & Noble reported “lower than expected first quarter sales results” and foresees a weak “overall retail environment,” leading the company to lower full-year guidance for same-store sales for the year from slightly positive to slightly negative. On a comparable-store basis, first quarter BN store sales dropped 1.5 percent at $1 billion, while BN.com sales were up 7.2 percent to just under $100 million, with overall sales at $1.2 billion for the quarter. The company reached an agreement in principle with California over “its long-standing dispute regarding the collection of sales and use taxes on sales […]