The National Book Awards will announce its finalists on NPR’s Morning Edition at 8:40 PM on October 15. Books & Books owner and co-founder of Miami Book Fair Mitchell Kaplan will make the announcement. Longtime co-owner of Village Books Dee Robinson will retire at the end of the week after more than 34 years. “It’s been a great job for 34 years,” Robinson wrote in a Facebook post to customers. “On to whatever awaits, starting with a pile of books!” Robinson’s husband and co-owner Chuck Robinson will stay on. Ingram will handle sales and distribution for Magnet & Steel, a […]
New Releases/Forthcoming
People, Etc.
John Loudon will join Yale University Press as consulting editor. Previously he was executive editor at Harper One in San Francisco. At St. Martin’s Press, Laura Clark has been promoted to senior director of marketing, communications and audience development. CLMP will honor Graywolf Press publisher Fiona McCrae for leadership and achievement in independent literary publishing, and Riverhead’s Katie Freeman for exceptional acts of literary achievement at their fall gala on October 29. In the UK, Mark Thwaite has joined Foyles as head of online, tasked with improving the bookseller’s e-commerce efforts and customer service. Previously he was head of online for […]
Writer’s Digest Tries Self-Publishing Again With BookBaby; RosettaBooks Expands Into Print; and More
Writer’s Digest quietly severed ties with Author Solutions, which provided the back-end to its self-publishing service Abbott Press , earlier this year. Now the company has teamed up with BookBaby for a different self-publishing program under the name Blue Ash Publishing. The new program takes pain to distinguish itself from the earlier one, touting “100 percent net earnings” once retailers are paid their percentages, and “no commission” taken by BookBaby, “total creative control” including full rights ownership to the author, “exclusive education programs” that include weekly newsletters, and for those who pay more, access to Writers Market, and other digital […]
People, Etc.
At St. Martin’s Press, Dori Weintraub has returned full time to the publicity department as vp, publicity, with an enhanced and expanded role working on a wide array of fiction and nonfiction across all teams. Weintraub, most recently vp, marketing, communications & audience development, will report to Tracey Guest, who said in a statement: “Everyone who has worked with Dori Weintraub in the past fourteen years can attest to the passion, fierce intelligence and dedication which she brings to her work. She’s recognized by national media and reviewers as a force in the industry. Since media coverage is critical to […]
Perlstein’s INVISIBLE BRIDGE Subject to Plagiarism Controversy
Rick Perlstein’s THE INVISIBLE BRIDGE has been subject to a number of controversies as the book publishes today, among them “sloppy scholarship, improper attribution, and plagiarism”, the NYT reports. Of the most serious charges, Reagan historian Craig Shirley accused Perlstein of plagiarizing several passages (the NY Post reported “at least 45 instances”) from Shirley’s 2004 book REAGAN’S REVOLUTION. Shirley’s lawyer Chris Ashby “cited 19 instances of duplicated language and inadequate attribution” in two letters to Perlstein’s publisher Simon & Schuster and demanded “$25 million in damages, a public apology, revised digital editions and the destruction of all physical copies of […]
Harper Lee Repudiates Marja Mills Book, Again; Mills Affirms Her Experiences
When Penguin Press announced their acquisition of Marja Mills‘s THE MOCKINGBIRD NEXT DOOR: LIFE WITH HARPER LEE in 2011, saying it was written with “direct access to Harper and Alice Lee,” Harper Lee’s attorneys released a letter in which the renowned author said, ” I have not willingly participated in any book written or to be written by Marja Mills. Neither have I authorized such a book. Any claims otherwise are false.” Just prior to publication on July 15, Harper Lee has provided another broader letter, via attorney Tonja Carter (sent to Mary McDonagh Murphy, who directed “Hey Boo: Harper Lee & To Kill a […]