For Jews this Thursday is the holiest day of the year (Yom Kippur), but for Brits it’s when 800 big holiday titles are published, “three times more than an average day.” Borders UK category manager Michael Jones coined the moniker, and the tells the Guardian, “So many of the really big books that are contenders to be in the top 10 are coming out. I can’t remember there being one day or even one week when it’s been like this. We’ve known about this day for a while so we’re prepared.”Guardian Separately, today’s WSJ focuses on three cookbooks landing Tuesday […]
International News
People
Emma House is leaving the London Book Fair in January after six years to join the UK’s Publishers Association as their international director. House will be the first woman to hold a senior role in the organization. Chief executive Simon Juden says “her appointment gives us the opportunity to refocus the role of international director slightly, as we seek to continue the robust protection of members’ copyrights overseas and domestically, as well as explore and exploit opportunities for market development.”
Credit Crisis Hits UK Wholesalers
The international credit crisis is threatening the UK book supply chain after Woolworth’s–which owns both trade and library wholesaler Bertram’s and Entertainment UK, which supplies books to the big supermarket segment–had its credit insurance pulled following a loss of 100 million pounds in the most recent six months. (The entertainment wholesale and publishing unit earned 2.2 million pounds on flat sales of 446 million pounds in the period.) As the Independent explained last month, “trade credit insurance covers businesses against the risk of bad debt due to the insolvency or protracted default of their buyers. Earlier in the summer credit […]
What Happened to Books in Canada?
Gil Adamson’s THE OUTLANDER won the First Novel Award now presented by Amazon.ca and Books in Canada: “part historical novel, part western Gothic, and part adventure story, it’s an astonishing portrayal of crime and retribution, and survival and love.” (It’s published by House of Anansi in Canada, and Ecco in the US.) But the real story, as the Globe and Mail points out, is the publishing hiatus at BiC, which has reviewed Canadian books since 1971. It “has not produced an issue since its January-February number this year, and now its proprietor is saying he has no intention of reviving […]
Director's Jesus Book a Dutch Bestseller
Dutch director Paul Verhoeven co-wrote JESUS OF NAZARETH with his own biographer Rob van Scheers and publisher Meulenhoff is on their fourth printing within weeks of release after a big promotional campaign in Holland. In the book, ” Verhoeven suggests that Jesus was the son of Mary and a Roman soldier who raped her,” the Hollywood Reporter says. Pendo has bought German rights; a US deal is reportedly in negotiations.HR
Bloomsbury Buys Berg
Bloomsbury has made another addition to its growing academic division with the purchase of Oxford International Publishers Limited, which operates as Berg Publishers, for 1.8 million pounds in cash, 200,000 million pounds in stock, and up to 1 million pounds in deferred compensation based performance. Focused on books and journals for the academic student market in the fields of fashion, design and culture studies, Berg had sales 1.58 million pounds in 2007. Kathryn Earle will continue to run the company.Release