Mark Twain stipulated that some 5,000 pages of unpublished memoirs should not be published until at least 100 years after his death in 1910. On schedule, the University of California, Berkeley is preparing to release in November the first in a three-volume Autobiography of Mark Twain that will comprise 500,000 words in all.IndependentUC Press page The New York Times looks at the latest book to come from the prolifically posthumous publishing enterprise of the archives of the late Henry Roth. Norton will publish AN AMERICAN TYPE on June 7. The paper credits young New Yorker editor Willing Davidson with “quarr[ying] […]
International News
Today's Bulletins from Open Road, Vook, Amazon, Kobo and Google Editions
Open Road has announced their first original title, former diplomat Mitchell Reiss’s NEGOTIATING WITH EVIL, “a guide to talking — or not talking — to terrorists and insurgents.” Reiss met Jane Friedman while traveling last year in Africa. He’s getting no advance, and a 50 percent profit share. The ebook releases in September with a print version to follow. Friedman reiterates her belief that “exciting videos are going to move the needle” in marketing books. Speaking of videos, the latest Vook adds studio and concert footage and interviews to a version of Marc Canter’s Guns N’ Roses book RECKLESS ROAD […]
Amazon Adds Crossing, New Imprint for Fiction In Translation
The etailer announced a new imprint today, Amazon Crossing, which will publish English-language translation of works from other languages, starting with Tierno Monénembo’s French novel (and winner of the prix Renaudot) THE KING OF KAEL, translated by Nicholas Elliott. Run by vp of books Jeff Belle, he says “our international customers have made us aware of exciting established and emerging voices from other cultures and countries that have not been translated for English-language readers.” As with their Encore program, they say that they will “use customer feedback and other data from Amazon sites around the world to identify exceptional books […]
UK's PFD Sold Again, to Talent Manager Backed by Matthew Freud
Beleaguered, once-proud UK agency PFD has been sold again, this time to agent Michael Foster, who will merge it with his three-person company MF Management and rename it The Rights House. (Foster’s founding investor, and the largest non-executive shareholder of the newly merged agency, is UK PR maven and son-in-law of Rupert Murdoch, Matthew Freud.) As a result, ten of the agency’s 32 staffers are reportedly going to lose their jobs. Caroline Michel, who was hired as chief executive of PFD in 2007 after previous management rebuffed efforts by core longtime agents to buy back the agency, remains as a […]
New Ventures: Bloomsbury Australia, Night Shade's New Imprint, and More
In a non-specific first quarter trading update–generally used to assure investors that everything is great–Bloomsbury announced that they will launch their own Australian division in January 2011. Current marketing director of Bloomsbury UK Kathleen Farrar will be managing director of the new unit. Their longtime Australian distributor Allen & Unwin will provide sales and distribution services to the new company. Update Sc-fi/horror publisher Night Shade Books is launching Pugilist Press, focused on “contemporary literary fiction with an edge.” Juliet Ulman is editor-in-chief of the new line, with Night Shade founder Jason Williams as publisher. Ulman had been at Bantam Dell […]
Hillendbrand's New Book Set for November; Demi Moore Is Shopping; and More
Seabiscuit author Laura Hillenbrand‘s new book UNBROKEN: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption has been announced for publication November 16 by Random House. (Seabiscuit was published in 2001.) They say it “tells the story of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic athlete and Army Air Force bombardier who, in 1943, crashed into the Pacific Ocean and floated for 47 days on a small raft, surviving shark attacks, a typhoon, and attack from the Japanese bomber. Captured by the Japanese military, he was sent to a series of prisoner of war camps, where he was held for more than […]