The new nonfiction division at Macmillan that Bob Miller is building and running has a name: Flatiron Books. He notes, “It’s a name that carries a lot of history, both for Macmillan and for New York City.” Former group publisher at Workman (and before that founding publisher at Hyperion and then Harper Studio), Miller started at Macmillan on July 8. He announced his first three acquisitions at the same time, for publication beginning in 2015. (All three are noted in Deals.)
Deals
Hogarth Enlists Well-Known Authors to Retell Shakespeare’s Plays In Prose; Random Resurrects Tastebook
Hogarth is commissioning new versions of Shakespeare’s plays “reimagined for a twenty-first century audience,” set to launch in 2016. They have already enlisted Anne Tyler to write a prose “retelling” of The Taming of the Shrew, and Jeanette Winterston for a new version of The Winter’s Tale. Winterston says in the announcement, “All of us have talismanic texts that we have carried around and that carry us around. I have worked with The Winter’s Tale in many disguises for many years. This is a brilliant opportunity to work with it in its own right. And I love cover versions.” Hogarth […]
Grumpy Cat Has His Day, But Pig In A Wheelchair Is Next with Three-Book Deal
As previewed last week, Grumpy Cat emerged as one of the biggest celebrity draws at BEA last week, with convention-goers lining up by the Chronicle booth for almost two hours. “Just 15 minutes into the event, the crowd was so anxious to get close to Grumpy Cat that the BEA organizers called for two extra security guards to maintain the peace,” the WSJ blogged. By their account the cat, whose actual name is Tardar Sauce, “seemed unphased” and “managed to sleep through most of her event” (though witnesses told us they thought the cat looked drugged rather than just sleepy/grumpy). […]
People, Etc.
Hannah Wood has moved to Harper as an associate editor. Isaac Fitzgerald will join McSweeney’s Publishing as publicity director on May 1. Previously he was managing editor of the literary website The Rumpus. Harper Christian has licensed exclusive rights to sell and distribute print editions of the entire catalog of titles from Spanish publishing house Editorial CLIE worldwide outside of Spain. The announcement underscores that the agreement includes the popular 1977 revised Reina-Valera Spanish Bible translation. CLIE books will be issued by Harper Christian as a separate imprint in their international roster, joining Grupo Nelson and Vida. As noted previously, it’s […]
Former Rodale Star Zinczenko Pairs with Random House On Imprint, Book Deal, and Distribution
Random House Publishing Group will partner with former Rodale executive David Zinczenko for an imprint, a multi-book contract, and a distribution deal. The imprint, Zinc Ink, will issue 6 to 12 lifestyle and nonfiction titles a year starting in 2014 in a profit-sharing arrangement. Titles signed include Maria Menounos’s The EveryGirl’s Diet and boxer and trainer Michael Olajide Jr.’s Sleekify. Zinczenko’s colleague at Galvanized Brands, chief operating officer Stephen Perrine, will be co-publisher alongside BBD publisher Libby McGuire. They will acquire along with BBD nonfiction editorial director, Jennifer Tung. Zinczenko will write three books to be determined on exercise, diet and […]
Pre-London Dealmaking Is Moderate As the Money Goes to Fiction
It’s time for our annual look at dealmaking activity in advance of the London Book Fair and as usual, we keep trying to find ways of looking at our deal report data that can reveal meaningful patterns rather than slight statistical oddities. It’s hard, because every weekday brings an average of 30 to 50 deal reports. So if we did this analysis tomorrow, with one more pre-LBF day of reports included the limited-window data would increase. Therefore, below we are going to show you some data from the past month as well as year-to-date deal totals. First up is year-to-date […]