Every year we check in on deal volume and pricing a couple of times ahead of the Frankfurt Book Fair. This season is a little unusual in that the Fair is a week later than usual this year, and Labor Day was late — perhaps delaying the beginning of the fall selling period. But for the month of September, which has been our consistent “first measure” for years, US deal volume lagged measurably. Last year we recorded 603 US deals in September, compared to 593 deals in 2013 — but this year, we posted only 506 deals during the month. US […]
Deals
For the Record: Clinton Got Over $8.5 Million for Latest Book
A few days ago Hillary Rodham Clinton released her tax returns for the years 2007 through 2014 (and when she had run for president in 2007, she had made public the Clintons’ tax returns for the years 2000 through 2006). The returns show that Clinton was paid over $8.5 million by Simon & Schuster for her 2014 book HARD CHOICES. She received $3 million after agreeing to the book deal in 2013, and reported another $5,563,867 from S&S in 2014 (figure the balance of the advance, and maybe some pass-through rights income). (Added later: Clinton’s 2015 tax return showed an […]
People, Etc.
Sara Sargent will return to Harper Children’s on July 13, in the new position of executive editor, reporting to Kate Jackson. She will acquire teen, middle grade and picture book fiction and nonfiction titles “created from or around digital and social media content. Sargent was most recently at Simon & Schuster, Robert Bolick is joining the International Baccalaureate (IB) as head of digital publishing & language services. After many years at McGraw-Hill Education, most recently he has been director of digital business transformation at the British Standards Institution. Awards The ALA presented their Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence to Anthony Doerr for All the Light We Cannot See for fiction, and […]
In London, Everything Old Is New Again
In a year of transitions for three of the world’s major book fairs, the London Book Fair opened Tuesday in a return to its historical home at the Olympia Exhibition Center. You can go home again, but usually by the time you do, someone has redecorated, and today LBF veterans went through multiple stages of soothing the cognitive dissonance of the return to Olympia. While there is a vague familiarity to the scene, everything is very different as well, and many fairgoers spent much of the opening morning getting situated. First there was the transportation, since the special above-ground train […]
Slaughter Moves to Harper In Global Deal, As Harper Adds Four More International Lines
HarperCollins officially announced from London on Tuesday morning a multi-territory four-book deal with bestselling author Karin Slaughter. The relationship begins with PRETTY GIRLS, now set for US publication in September, which Harper will publish in all countries in which it operates on their newly-expanded international platform — except for the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Holland. “Subsequent books” in the deal “will include additional territories,” the announcement notes, meaning Harper will publish in the UK as well later in the multi-book deal. (The Bookseller says Harper will start with book three in the UK.) Until very recently PRETTY GIRLS was listed for July publication […]
Fiction Deals Soft Heading Into London Book Fair
With the London Book Fair convening as of next Tuesday, it’s time for our regular analysis of dealmaking patterns in advance of the big international rights show. As usual, the last few days of results can have some effect on our final stats so we’ll be back on Monday with more definitive counts. (We’ve already posted 189 deals since Monday morning, with more to add to our site.) But the initial graphs surveying the five weeks leading up to LBF (starting March 7) show two clear trends. In domestic (US) deals, despite a significant surge in nonfiction reports, overall dealmaking […]