The LAT claims that “a movie’s release often leads to only a small uptick in a tie-in book’s sales” while declaring the EAT, PRAY, LOVE tie-in “the big exception this year.” The interesting part is that the book returned to the top of the bestseller lists in late May, well in advance of the movie’s marketing campaign. Separately, Nielsen released a chart on sales for the Elizabeth Gilbert book, which recorded sales of 94,000 units in the week ending August 1 alone. Sales in 2010 of 721,000 copies are more than double last year’ sales (and the movie release August […]
Film/TV
Numbers: Eclipse Opening, European Orphan Books
The Wednesday opening of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse took in $68.5 million at the box office–a record for a Wednesday debut, though slightly shy of New Moon’s opening of $72.7, though that come on a Friday.HR A report from the European Commission estimates that the Europe has over 3 million in-copyright orphan books, though it’s a rough calculation. “There are approximately 600,000 orphan works in the UK. Based on the same key factors extrapolated to the rest of the Member States, the number of orphan books in EU would be about 3 million.” As they note, in Europe there is […]
Announcements: Topical McCullough eSerial; Getting Glued to Favorite Books; Candlewick's Audio; Horrid Henry Moves to Film
Capitalizing on President Obama’s confrontation with General Stanley McChrystal, Simon & Schuster is releasing a short ebook by David McCullough called TRUMAN FIRES MACARTHUR. It’s an excerpt from his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography Truman. The 35-page title lists for $1.99 and is supposed to be available from major ebooksellers by some time later today. Yesterday afternoon GetGlue launched a Foursquare-inspired pop culture iOS app that encourages users to “check in” to favorite TV shows, music, movies and yes, books, and see what friends are enjoying in real-time. Publishing partners providing “exclusive stickers” as “rewards” include Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, […]
The Next Round of Twilight Fever
Twilight fans have been camping out for days to secure good viewing spots at the scene of tonight’s premiere of The Twilight Sage: Eclipse in Los Angeles. The Hollywood Reporter says that “not since Star Wars has fandom been, well, so fanatical about a single movie” and they also claim “the fervor of the fans is already being compared to the frenzy that surrounded the Beatles when they hit America in the 60s.” The last Twilight movie recorded a $143 million three-day opening, but it was released in November. HR expects the new movie to do better, and also looks […]
Random House to Start Shooting Adaptation of Just-Released Novel
Random House Films and Focus Features will start shooting next month on a film version of David Nicholls’ novel ONE DAY, released today in the US in trade paperback by Vintage. Nicholls adapted the book for film, and Focus plans on a theatrical release in the third quarter of 2011. Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess are starring, with Nina Jacobson producing.
People and More
Kelly Bowen will join Algonquin as senior publicist on February 24. She has bee a publicist at Simon and Schuster. YA author and agent Mandy Hubbard has joined the D4EO Literary Agency where she will concentrate on YA and middle-grade fiction. on. Simon & Schuster has relaunched their trade web site, www.simonandschuster.biz. It includes a blog for booksellers from their marketing staff and tools for authors to enter customized information about themselves and blog posts that appear on their consumer web site. It also provides handy access to company’s own digital catalog–where we spotted former Bear Stearns ceo Ace Greenberg’s […]