With the Frankfurt Book Fair about a week away, it’s time for our regular look at dealmaking patterns and trends in advance of the show. As usual, we try hard to let the data tell the meaningful stories. If you had asked for our impressionistic view based on the recent deal report flow and community chatter, we would have said that the flow of newsmaking nonfiction deals has seemed higher and that fiction–at least for unexpected new properties–has seemed light, with few new properties driving a lot of talk and intense rights sales. But the actual data tells a somewhat […]
Deals
Corporate: Amazon Publishing In Line To Buy Dorchester Publishing Assets; BN Annual Report Tidbits
Months after long-troubled Dorchester Publishing went into foreclosure with more than $2.9 million in outstanding debts to owner John Backe, it appears Amazon Publishing is in line to acquire the company’s backlist, contracts, and other intellectual property, according to a notice of public disposition issued on June 27 and first reported on by agent Richard Curtis. Potential bidders have until August 15 to submit competing offers and, should there be additional bidders, an auction will be held on August 28 at the offices of Garfunkel Wild in Great Neck, NY. Considering how long Dorchester’s assets have been up for grabs, […]
Upcoming: Deals for Carly Simon, Dolly Parton, Cissy Houston, Biz Stone
BEA is just a few hours old — and the show floor won’t even open until Tuesday — but for now some of the biggest announcements are in the deals department. Random House Publishing Group has acquired Carly Simon‘s autobiography, which will cover “the discovery of her life-altering stammer, her meteoric rise and unparalleled career in music, and her loves, including her marriage to James Taylor, with Simon saying “after years of keeping journals and writing lyrics for my tunes, I have developed a strong interest in seeing how my life might just string together in a longer form.” In […]
People: Kendall to Lead Mulholland
Joshua Kendall will join Little, Brown on May 29 as the new editorial director of their Mulholland Books suspense fiction imprint, reporting to Judy Clain. Previously Kendall was senior editor at Viking/Penguin, and fills the slot vacated by John Schoenfelder, who left to work for film producer Scott Rudin. At Open Road, Allison Underwood has been promoted to senior marketing manager and Lara Selavka moves up to associate interactive producer. In addition, Iris Blasi joins as marketing manager, reporting to Underwood. She was most recently digital media manager with Hilsinger-Mendelson East. Ingram has relaunched their online search and order platform […]
London Travel Advisory, and Deal Trends
For those heading to the London Book Fair shortly, note that there are planned tube closures this weekend that may effect travel to Earl’s Court and the conference center in Westminster. Most notably, the Circle line is scheduled to be closed entirely both Saturday and Sunday. The District line will be partially suspended both days, with no service from Earl’s Court to the east, including Westminster. Earl’s Court should still be serviced by Picadilly line and Westminster should still be serviced by the Jubilee line. You can check the official London transport site for more details. Meanwhile, per tradition we […]
Amazon Publishing’s Deals Make It the Peer of Two Big Six Adult Groups for Now
We’re wary of overcovering Amazon, but the etailer’s rapid publishing ramp-up is clearly of widespread community interest, and it feels as if we’ve been seen a large volume of deal reports for their various imprints lately. As always, we like to measure impressions against data. To that end, here is the breakdown of Publishers Marketplace deal reports for all Amazon publishing imprints over the last quarter: Amazon NY 18 Thomas & Mercer 14 Montlake Romance 12 Amazon Crossing 5 47North 3 Amazon Encore 2 Total: 54 deals But where does that deal volume put them? Compared to the […]