Hollands Diep will publish of the forthcoming books by former president Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama in Dutch. At Abrams, Melanie Chang has been appointed to the new role of vice president of children’s marketing and publicity. Chang will oversee marketing and publicity for the Abrams Children’s, Amulet, and Appleseed imprints. Liz Fithian has joined as director of franchise marketing for children’s books, reporting to Melanie Chang. Previously, she was director of marketing at Macmillan. SVP and chief marketing officer Steve Tager will transition from overseeing children’s marketing and publicity to focusing on marketing and publicity for Abrams’ adult businesses, including Abrams Plus’ Noterie gift […]
Deals
International: Obamas’ French Publisher, New Harlequin Line, and Awards
Hachette Livre’s Fayard became the first publisher outside of the Penguin Random House family to announce that it has licensed rights, in France, to the forthcoming books by former president Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama. They also publish Hillary Clinton in French. Harlequin announced the launch of Harlequin Dare, a romance series “featuring strong, independent women” in “highly explicit encounters,” which will start publishing in January 2018. Harlequin is acquiring for line from their offices in London, New York and Toronto and will publish four titles a month — in both print and ebook form in the UK and Australia, and […]
Major Fiction Deals Rebound In Otherwise Modest Pre-Fair Activity
In line with our early assessment of dealmaking heading into this year’s London Book Fair, now officially underway, even with a busy few days of final reports this year’s activity stands at moderate. The biggest (or “major”) deals came in just ahead of last year and still well below the most recent high-water mark in 2014, with fiction having its second-strongest showing in the last 8 years (and in turn nonfiction at its weakest point in that period — except for the Obamas’ record-setting deal). Overall six-figure deals were more balanced across the breakouts: Looking just at the closely-watched fiction […]
Moderate Dealmaking Ahead of the London Book Fair
It’s an unusual dealmaking climate leading into this year’s London Book Fair, which officially begins next Tuesday, for a variety of reasons. Shifting the gathering back a month to mid-March for the first time in years has various effects. The submissions process appears to have made a late adjustment to the early show and, as we have already noted, with big publishers just coming out of sales conference, new announcements for big fall titles (in the last week alone including Mandela, Allende, Gordon Brown, Dan Rather, the Bush sisters, Jennifer Egan, Tina Brown, and John Le Carre) are getting as much […]
Penguin Random House Wins Obama Books
Armed with the biggest purse in town, Penguin Random House announced late Tuesday that the company has acquired world rights to two forthcoming books, one by former president Barack Obama and one by former first lady Michelle Obama. The announcement was made under the name of ceo Markus Dohle, who according to PRH employees stayed in New York to finalize negotiations and was not at the company’s sales conference in Florida. (Update: We misunderstood; Mr. Dohle has indeed been at sales conference. People were indicating he might have missed out on some meetings during the negotiations, but a spokesperson attested to his “engagement…at […]
Auction for The Obamas’ Books Said to Pass $60 Million
By Tuesday afternoon bidding for world rights to a package of two books, one by Barack Obama and one by Michelle Obama, had reached over $60 million, according to multiple sources talking to the FT. Penguin Random House has always been considered the leading contender — and has the biggest pocket on the block. The FT says Simon & Schuster and Macmillan have paired to make a joint bid (and one rumor has Oprah Winfrey’s imprint as the Macmillan part of the offer), with Harper bidding as well. They don’t list HBG as a known active bidder. By their account […]