Yesterday’s Lunch dispatch misstated the nature of The Paris Review’s excerpting of Roberto Bolano’s novel THE THIRD REICH, which FSG will publish near the end of the year. The magazine is, in fact, serializing the book over four consecutive issues, with the final installment to be released in the first week of December. This is the first time in forty years that The Paris Review has serialized a novel. Editor Lorin Stein tells us the full novel will be published by FSG in mid-December, but the publisher’s fall catalog currently lists a November publication date, and director of publicity Jeff […]
How Publishing Works
BISG E-Book ISBN Survey Shows Just How Much More Work Needs To Be Done
Last week the Book Industry Study Group held a meeting to review findings of a study conducted by Michael Cairns of Information Media Partners on how ISBNs are deployed with respect to e-books – or more specifically, how there is nowhere near a consistent standard or best practice for doing so. The full study will be available in a few weeks but Cairns has made the executive summary available at his blog Personanondata. Thanks to the proliferation of e-book formats and Amazon’s insistence on its own proprietary format, ASIN, the study finds that “the ISBN agency is virtually irrelevant to […]
Odyssey Editions Fallout: Random House Puts Business Dealings with Wylie Agency On Hold, Macmillan CEO “Appalled”, and More
The fallout over Andrew Wylie’s entry into the e-book business with the help of an exclusive deal with Amazon continues, with publishers and independent booksellers expressing their displeasure – and in one Big Six house’s instance, some forceful action. In a statement released yesterday afternoon, Random House has indicated that The Wylie Agency’s decision to sell e-books exclusively to Amazon through its new Odyssey Books company “undermines [Random House’s] longstanding commitments to and investments in our authors, and it establishes this Agency as our direct competitor.” As a result, “Random House on a worldwide basis will not be entering into […]
Macmillan CEO Is “Appalled” by Wylie Publishing Deal with Amazon
In a blog post on Macmillan’s website, CEO John Sargent has issued his response to Andrew Wylie’s move to distribute select backlist titles exclusively via Amazon. First, Sargent “welcomes” Wylie to the fold as a publisher, joking that he’ll be knocking on the agent’s door to ask for AAP dues: “In today’s world job functions, channels of distribution, and age-old relationships are constantly shifting. Combining the functions of agent and publisher raises serious issues that I feel strongly about, but if Andrew wants to attempt to disintermediate publishers, that is his right.” But Sargent is “appalled” that Wylie has chosen […]
1 million E-Books for the Millenium Trilogy, Hyperion Cancels Book by Elizabeth Gilbert’s Ex-Husband; and More Briefs
Knopf announced that Stieg Larsson’s Millenium trilogy has sold more than 1 million e-book copies, according to the AP. THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, in particular, is doing extremely well, selling more than 500,000 copies in all digital formats as well as being the all-time top selling Kindle book (Kathryn Stockett’s THE HELP is at #2.) “We are witnessing record-breaking sales for THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO in trade and mass market paperback as well as in audio, so it is not surprising that this trend is being mirrored with e-books,” Knopf spokesman Paul Bogaards told the AP […]
Evanovich Contract Negotiations Become News Story
News of an author switching publishing houses often doesn’t even trickle out into public view until the most recent book arrives with a different colophon on the side of the hardcover or paperback. Reports on contract negotiations are even rarer – but for the big brand names, anything is news. Hence yesterday’s story at Deadline.com about negotiations between Janet Evanovich and St. Martin’s Press, which has published every Stephanie Plum novel since 1996 and just released the newest #1 NYT bestseller, SIZZLING SIXTEEN. Per the wispily sourced piece, SMP allegedly turned down Evanovich’s hoped-for contract extension of $50 million for […]