Former ceo of Bantam Books Oscar Dystel, 101, “widely acknowledged as one of the great architects of modern trade publishing”, died Wednesday morning. As chief executive and publisher of Bantam from 1954 through 1978 (with another two years as chairman) Dystel was responsible for some of the most successful paperbacks in the 20th century including EXODUS by Leon Uris; JAWS by Peter Benchley; and Jacqueline Susann’s VALLEY OF THE DOLLS. In a statement Random House paid tribute to Dystel as “a mentor and muse for innumerable authors and past and present colleagues of ours throughout publishing. He was a giant, […]
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Carmen Balcells and Andrew Wylie Join Forces for International Agency
Literary agents Carmen Balcells, and Andrew Wylie, are joining forces for a new international agency, Balcells & Wylie, according to a short two-paragraph email sent to clients of the two agencies and seen by Spanish newspapers. They say the email begins: “Yesterday May 27, Carmen Balcells and Andrew Wylie signed a memorandum of understanding in order to create an international agency called Balcells & Wylie.” It notes that, “We have admired each other for years, and we are now able to work more closely. Our goal is to give greater strength, scope and duration to the representation of clients, and we are excited […]
Hachette Answers; Will Discuss “Compensating for the Damage” of Amazon’s “Demand” After Dispute Is Settled
On Wednesday morning, Hachette Book Group issued another statement in reply to Amazon’s Tuesday night post: “It is good to see Amazon acknowledge that its business decisions significantly affect authors’ lives,” they open. “For reasons of their own, Amazon has limited its customers’ ability to buy more than 5,000 Hachette titles.” As for Amazon’s public offer to share the acknowledged impact on authors, HBG says: “Once we have reached…an agreement, we will be happy to discuss with Amazon its ideas about compensating authors for the damage its demand for improved terms may have done them, and to pass along any […]
Beyond BEA, Digital Book World 2015 Announces First Keynotes
Looking a few big events down the road, our conference partners at Digital Book World have officially opened for registration the sixth annual conference, to be held January 13 – 15, 2015 in New York. Today’s announcement includes some of conference’s broad themes, as well as the first group of timely keynote speakers. Already on the docket are top CEOs — Brian Murray of HarperCollins (which recently announced their planned acquisition of Harlequin) and Linda Zecher of recently-public Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (the first part of an expanded look at ed tech and other education-related issues) — and two top authors, […]
Fall/Winter BEA Book Buzz Preview: Fiction
As usual, our free Buzz Books samplers both open with Sarah Weinman’s broader surveys of over 100 notable books from the forthcoming season. We’ll be running portions of those overviews the next few days to help round out your BEA radar — and you can read the complete previews anytime in the new editions of Buzz Books. Download yours now from any major ebookstore — including Kindle, iBookstore, or Nook — or get the “trade edition” here as an EPUB or through NetGalley or Edelweiss. With thousands of downloads already, it’s the “big book” of BEA, letting you grab 30 […]
People: Maya Angelou, 86, Dies
Award-winning author, renowned poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou, 86, died at her home in Winston-Salem, NC early Wednesday morning. She had been in failing health for some time, cancelling an awards appearance several days earlier. “She’d been very frail and had heart problems, but she was going strong, finishing a new book,” Angelou’s agent Helen Brann told ABC News. “I spoke to her yesterday. She was fine, as she always was. Her spirit was indomitable.” Angelou was the author of more than 30 books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, most notably I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS […]