In a year with no shortage of strange developments, one of the stranger was the March lawsuit brought by the Harper Lee estate against the producers of new stage version of To Kill A Mockingbird — settled out of court (and thus privately) in May, after production company Rudinplay had countersued the estate and its representative Tonja Carter in April. With the play officially opening this week, over the weekend the NYT provided a detailed assessment of the ways in which the script is likely to have changed since the settlement. By their evaluation, of 80 script elements that Carter […]
Legal
Legal: Morton Victorious Over Agent; Krakauer Sues Over Into the Wild Musical; Report Challenges Tattoist
From Australia comes a reminder (not that we needed one) of the enduring value of written contracts. A court ruled in favor of Australian author Kate Morton, who was sued by her former literary agent Selwa Anthony (and then countersued for breach of “fiduciary duty and duty of care”). Anthony claimed that she was entitled to commissions on Morton’s backlist in perpetuity, despite having been fired in 2015, based on a claim of a verbal agreement in a 2002 phone conversation. The pair never had a written agency agreement; during the trial, Anthony said she “didn’t believe in contracts.” Justice […]
Deadline Set for a Motion to Dismiss B&N Counterclaims Against Parneros
Former Barnes & Noble ceo Demos Parneros’s desire to ask the court to dismiss the bookseller’s countersuit against him persists, at least for a few more weeks, following a pre-motion conference on Thursday before Judge John G. Koetl. The judge set a December 21 deadline for the plaintiff’s counsel either to answer or move against Barnes & Noble’s counterclaims. But Judge Koetl discouraged the idea again, this time at great length. He said that “substantial hours” would be spent on it, which “wouldn’t make a whit of difference to the case.” Attorney Anne Clark seemed to be channeling her client […]
People, Etc.
At Doubleday, Margo Shickmanter has been promoted to editor. Tara Feehan will join Harper Children’s as vp, finance and administration, moving over from the operations & technology finance team, and reporting to Suzanne Murphy. Feehan succeeds Randy Rosema who will retire in January. Shari Black has joined Harper Christian as senior director of marketing for the specialty publishing division. She previously worked in account sales and marketing for Warner Bros. Entertainment, The Walt Disney Company, and Walmart. At Workman Publishing, Constance Edmonds has been promoted to promotion coordinator across all imprints. Ashley McPhee joins as promotion coordinator for the Workman imprint. She was previous a […]
Briefs: Wiley Audiobooks, Gucci Books, Another BN Legal Conference, and More
Audio RBmedia has an agreement with Wiley to publish audiobook versions of more than 650 of the book publisher’s titles over the next three years, starting in January. The deal “allows for publication of all frontlist titles, with a primary focus on business, finance and the well-known Dummies brand, as well as select titles from tech and other key subject areas,” and it includes “select backlist titles” as well. They note that “a significant percentage of audiobooks [will] be narrated by Wiley authors, including global thought leaders, educators, and practitioners.” Bookselling Soho’s latest bookselling space is “gucci.” As in the […]
Parneros v. Barnes & Noble Inches Forward
Judge John G. Koetl convened a pre-trial conference in the high-profile Parneros v. Barnes & Noble case Tuesday afternoon, which he kicked off by asking counsel to describe the case. Parneros’ attorney Anne Clark of Vladeck, Raskin & Clark rehashed the details of the original complaint before raising the possibility of a motion to dismiss Barnes & Noble’s counterclaims, saying they didn’t meet the court’s standards — and reiterated that the countersuit, along with the company’s press release when Parneros was fired, had made him unhirable according to headhunters. The judge was wary of dismissal, offering that “the existence of […]