Moving past the annual hype over “heated auctions,” it’s time for our first check-in on the actual state of dealmaking heading into the Frankfurt Book Fair, with the big final week still to come. For now, total deal volume is looking strong — particularly for adult titles, with those categories trending in line with 2014, which was busiest Frankfurt dealmaking period in years — though softer children’s and digital publisher sales are holding down the totals. A clearer trend emerges from analyzing reported transactions for six-figures or better. With 7 significant deals for fiction and 4 major deals so far, […]
Deals
Clinton and Patterson Co-Author A Novel, For Joint Publication By Little, Brown and Knopf
Knopf and Little, Brown announced jointly on Monday that they will co-publish a novel co-authored by former president Bill Clinton and James Patterson, THE PRESIDENT IS MISSING, on June 11, 2018 (six days before Father’s Day). Century will publish in the UK and Commonwealth, excluding Canada, and Suzanne Smith at Knopf will oversee the sale of translation rights. (Presumably Random House has the lead on publishing in Germany and Hachette has a similar lead on publishing in France; it will be interesting to see how they handle Spanish-language rights, where both companies have major groups.) Clinton and Patterson were represented by […]
People, Etc.
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 […]
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 […]