In further updates, the Hollywood Reporter ran a story last week on recent activity by Random House Films (as well as Macmillan’s movie development team) which left us confused about the direction of the RH unit. Since it was founded in 2005, Random House Films has focused on developing, co-financing and co-producing movies based on books in partnership with Focus Features. While the enterprise has yet to achieve the “substantial slate of feature films” envisioned at the outset, Random House spokesman Stuart Applebaum says the venture “continues ever-forward under its founding leader and president, Peter Gethers.” So far the only […]
Deals
Rowling Will Publish This Year (and Settled With Christopher Little)
Further to yesterday morning’s announcement of JK Rowling’s new novel, which did include release timing, Rowling herself told the Twitter the book will be “out later this year.” Agent Neil Blair confirms to the WSJ “that he negotiated directly with Little, Brown in the UK for world English rights rather than offering the title for auction,” which is what we inferred, but apparently has surprised some people. Little-noticed was last month’s preamble to yesterday’s announcement: The Daily Mail “was informed” by London-based reputation and crisis-management firm Project Associates that Rowling settled with former agent Christopher Little. The statement indicated that […]
JK Rowling’s First Adult Novel to Little, Brown
Little, Brown has world English rights to the first novel for adults by JK Rowling, the company announced Thursday morning. Little Brown UK publisher David Shelley will serve as Rowling’s editor and Michael Pietsch will oversee publication in the US. All other details–title, pub date “and further details about the novel will be announced later in the year.” But one important element has been settled: While the world waits for Pottermore and the Harry Potter ebooks, Little, Brown promises they will publish “both in print and ebooks.” Rowling says in the release: “Although I’ve enjoyed writing it every bit as […]
People: Chase, Farley, Ditlow, Deen and More
Farley Chase has formed Chase Literary Agency after nearly eight years as a literary agent with the Waxman Literary Agency. He will continue to represent the foreign rights for The Waxman Literary Agency. Former president and publisher of Macmillan Children’s Dan Farley is joining education technology platform startup SwoopThat as a principal and evp, business development. SwoopThat aims to increase textbook affordability for students and enhance college bookstore revenues by helping them adjust to the quickly changing coursebook market. “This is a venture that can, proverbially, make a difference. And, it’s fresh, exciting, and full of opportunity,” Farley said in note to colleagues. He […]
The Year In Deals: 2011
After a positive response to our pre-Frankfurt deal analysis and charts, our webmaster built a sophisticated set of tools to let us analyze all the data locked inside our Deals database, the largest collection of deal data ever compiled. So now we can offer an assessment of the deal trends of 2011, and we can put those results in the context of a five-year pattern as well. The data shows that US book deal volume increased for the second straight year in 2011, at 5,211 transactions in all, up 5.4 percent overall (after a 7.7 percent gain in 2010). Nonfiction […]
Knox Activity
Amanda Knox’s grandmother Elisabeth Huff tells the Telegraph that approaches for book representation and deals began almost immediately: “I had an insane man come to me yesterday to talk to me about book deals. What an insane idea. That is totally crazy, the girl was not even home yet, we didn’t know if she was even going to get out of there. It was after the verdict. He knocked on the door and wanted to discuss book deals and media deals.” For her part, she believes it would be “a good idea” to share some of any potential profit with […]