ICM is now representing rights to “the majority of titles” written by the late Michael Crichton (including most of his best-known novels, with the exception of Jurassic Park). Sloan Harris and Jennifer Joel will lead representation on the literary side, and the agency says it will “work closely with Sherri Crichton and licensees of rights […]
Marketing
Corporate: Hachette UK Adds Ilex, and the Penguin Hotline
The latest acquisition in a busy year for M&A, Hachette UK has purchased illustrated reference book publisher Ilex and will make it part of Octopus. Alastair Campbell, who co-founded Ilex 15 years ago, is retiring from the company, but the rest of the publishing staff will be retained and transferred to London. The Bookseller says that Nielsen Bookscan shows […]
Corporate: In-Flight eBooks on JetBlue; BN Commissions 500,000 Signed Books For Holidays; Perseus Year-End View
JetBlue’s has launched their “Fly-Fi” content platform, currently available on about 35 percent of all flights as part of their rollout of inflight wi-fi, offering free content, including excerpts of more than 20 ebooks from HarperCollins, their “exclusive book content partner” at launch. Penguin Random House will join the program in the first quarter of 2015. The […]
Corporate: Reviving Scribner’s Magazine Online, Open Road Espanol, and Courier’s Brazilian Buy
The latest consumer-facing website launched by Simon & Schuster revives an old magazine name: Scribner Magazine, inspired by (but dropping the apostrophe of) the publisher’s long-ago sister publication Scribner’s Magazine, which published from 1887 through 1939. The new site will act as a general-interest literary magazine featuring “contributions from Scribner authors, editors, fellow S&S imprints, […]
People, Etc.
Michelle Aielli has been named executive director of publicity for Hachette Books. She moves over from Little, Brown, where she was most recently publicity director. At Simon & Schuster, Jennifer Grojean has been promoted to director, national accounts for special markets, while Bianca Johnson moves up to manager, adult custom & proprietary sales. In addition, […]
Announcements: Microsoft Moves to Pearson; Amazon Publishing in Germany; and More
Microsoft Press will work with Pearson for global distribution of their print and ebooks as of April 1. They will also jointly launch microsoftpressstore.com the same month. Microsoft had been distributed by O’Reilly Media, as part of a broader strategic relationship between the two. Last September, Microsoft Press announced that they were taking back editorial […]