Savvy agents have long known the advantages of representing well-established literary estates and now following the diminution of PFD, the gloves are off in London. The Times says: ” No point wasting one’s time with new authors. They’re unpredictable, demanding. They require lunch. No, what any literary agent worth his salt needs in 2008 is a classic author with form: famous, prolific and deceased within the past 70 years. In recent months, the literary estate – the body of work belonging to a dead author – has suddenly and unexpectedly become big business.” As previously reported, Andrew Wylie took over […]
International News
UK Market-Share Stats
Here are figures for the first 24 weeks of 2008, according to Nielsen BookScan Total Consumer Market: UK Market-Shate Publisher Sales (pounds) Share 20081 Hachette Livre UK £105,912,663 15.3%2 Random House £104,515,833 15.1% 3 Penguin £68,827,003 9.9%4 HarperCollins £56,790,193 8.2%5 Pan Macmillan £23,543,369 3.4%6 Bloomsbury £17,316,123 2.5%7 Pearson Education £13,023,242 1.9%8 OUP £12,770,894 1.8%9 John Wiley £11,900,951 1.7%10 Simon & Schuster £11,195,056 1.6%
Australian Import/Copyright Fight: Sounds Like a Losing Battle
In Australia, booksellers and a government commission are seeking to remove the country’s restrictions that give Australian publishers 30 days after the release of book elsewhere in the world to issue an Australian edition (which protects territorial rights and blocks the importing of editions from other countries). The industry response, as the Australian puts it: “The Australian Publishers Association and the Australian Society of Authors are organising a grassroots campaign to educate the public that cheap books will come at a cost to the local industry.”Australian
Enthusiasm at Brazil Literary Festival
Reuters reports on the latest Paraty Literary Festival–founded six years ago by the UK’s Liz Calder–which has “helped transform the town about halfway between Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo into a trendy destination and given Brazil a spot on the international literary circuit.” Reuters
Lunch for Wednesday, May 28
McLellan’s Book Criticizes Bush Former White House press secretary Scott McLellan’s book WHAT HAPPENED: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception makes headlines after Politico and then the NYT purchased embargoed copies in advance of next week’s release. Politico calls it a “surprisingly scathing memoir” that says Bush “veered terribly off course” and was not “open and forthright on Iraq.” President Bush “convinces himself to believe what suits his needs at the moment” and has engaged in “self-deception,” the NYT writes, and he says “White House officials deceived him about the administration’s involvement in the leaking of […]