Complete

Angel to Lead (and Expand) Faber in US As was being murmured in the halls at the London Book Fair, Fourth Estate editorial director Mitzi Angel will relocate to New York to become publisher of Faber, Inc. in the US as part of an initiative to expand that imprint “with its own singular identity” as well as build a program of joint world English acquisitions with Faber and Faber the UK. (Originally established as the US branch of the British Faber and Faber, a majority interest in the operation was sold to Farrar, Straus in 1998.) But FSG will continue […]

Another Jump for Amazon Even with the bar set pretty high, Amazon met or exceeded analysts’ consensus expectations with first quarter sales of $4.13 billion, up 37 percent, and net income of $143 million, up 30 percent from a year ago. Yet the company’s earnings guidance for the next quarter stayed the same, even as they foresee another strong rise in sales of between 34 percent and 41 percent. That renews investor concerns about the company’s margins and is taking the stock down today after a sharp run-up over the past two months. Of course publishers only care about what […]

Son Decides to Publish Last Nabokov Novel Vladimir Nabokov’s son Dmitri has told Germany’s Der Spiegel that he has finally decided to ignore his father’s instructions to burn his final manuscript, THE ORIGINAL OF LAURA, and will instead have it published. Dmitri said, “I’m a loyal son and thought long and seriously about it, then my father appeared before me and said, with an ironic grin, ‘You’re stuck in a right old mess – just go ahead and publish!'” Dmitri has called the manuscript “the most concentrated distillation of [my father’s] creativity.” Guardian blog Thomas Nelson Cuts Staff The religious […]

Planeta Deal for Editis Looms Following tentative press reports earlier this month, French investment group Wendel has confirmed that it is in final, exclusive negotiations with Spain’s Grupo Planeta in the sale of France’s second-largest publishing company Editis, based on an enterprise value for the company of 1.03 billion euros (or $1.63 billion). They hope to finalize a sale agreement before the end of June. Planeta says they intend to finance the deal with equal parts of debt and equity. Reportedly, France’s Media-Participations had also made a substantial bid for the company. Editis’s portfolio includes the publishers Robert Laffont, Editions […]

Signet Drops Cassie Edwards over Plagiarism Claims Publisher Signet said on Friday in a statement that it had “conducted an extensive review of all its Cassie Edwards novels and due to irreconcilable editorial differences, Ms. Edwards and Signet have mutually agreed to part ways. Cassie Edwards novels will no longer be published with Signet Books. All rights to Ms. Edwards’ previously published Signet books have reverted to the author.” The investigation was initiated after the Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Books site posted numerous instances of passages they said were copied from historical works. At first Signet defended Edwards’ work […]

Buy Kindle, Love Jeff Jeff Bezos’s annual letter to shareholders is all about Kindle, casting the device as “exemplif[ying] our philosophy and long-term investment approach” as originally expressed in his 1997 letter (the year that Amazon jumped from $16 million in sales to to $148 million). He observes: “We also knew we shouldn’t try to copy every last feature of a book—we could never out-book the book. We’d have to add new capabilities—ones that could never be possible with a traditional book. “The early days of Amazon.com provide an analog. It was tempting back then to believe that an online […]