At Scholastic’s trade publishing division, editorial director David Levithan has been promoted to publisher and editorial director. In other promotions, Charisse Meloto moves up to executive director of publicity for print and digital publishing; Bess Braswell is now director of marketing; Victoria Tisch is director of marketing operations; Maria Dominguez is executive editor and manager, Scholastic en español; and Paul Banks moves up to executive art director, licensed publishing and school market originals. Simon & Schuster’s children’s imprints Aladdin and Simon Pulse will co-publish Beyond Words Publishing‘s children’s list. S&S will handle sales, distribution, and fulfillment of their 10 to […]
New Releases/Forthcoming
eNews: Kobo Pairs with Fnac in France; BlueFire Goes International; and More
Kobo has announced their next international ebook alliance, with France’s top bookselling chain Fnac. Set to launch “within the fourth quarter” of this year both online and in 81 Fnac stores, the bookseller has committed to having “ereading experts on hand to give personalized in-store demonstrations,” taking a cue from Barnes & Noble’s Nook boutiques. They promise “the largest catalog of ebooks in France” without specifying a number of titles on a platform that will be called “Kobo by Fnac.” (Amazon launched their Kindle store last week with about 35,000 titles in French. This time a year ago, Fnac said […]
Isaacson Recalls First and Last Jobs Meetings
Walter Isaacson has a short essay at Time.com about the genesis of his Steve Jobs biography. Key portions are at this open link at Poynter. Jobs called Isaacson in the summer of 2004 to arrange a meeting in Aspen: “It turned out that he wanted me to write a biography of him…. Because I assumed that he was still in the middle of an oscillating career that had many more ups and downs left, I demurred. Not now, I said. Maybe in a decade or two, when you retire. But I later realized that he had called me just before […]
S&S Moves Up Isaacson’s Steve Jobs Bio to October 24
Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs, 56, died Wednesday evening from complications of pancreatic cancer. “We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today,” the company said in a brief statement. “Steve’s brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve.” Soon after the news was released, Walter Isaacson’s forthcoming biography of Jobs – whose publication date had already been pushed up to November 21 – went to No. 1 on Amazon and No. 3 on BN.com. Thursday morning Simon […]
Strong Start for O’Reilly’s Lincoln Book
Holt is celebrating strong first-day sales for Bill O’Reilly’s KILLING LINCOLN, a departure for the television host and his first book for the house, reuniting with his publisher from Random House, Steve Rubin. The publisher says the opening day sales alone were in excess of O’Reilly’s first-week sales on his last two hardcover releases, indicating combined print and ebook sales in excess of 30,000 units, and day two sales “are keeping apace.” Rubin says “contemporary times makes it something people really want to read. He feels like Lincoln was a great leader, and what we lack now is leadership.” O’Reilly […]
Palin Accuses McGinniss of Defamation and “May” File Claim
Sarah Palin’s Anchorage attorney has written to Crown, saying that Joe McGinniss’s book THE ROGUE “defamed” the Palins and that both the publisher and author “clearly knew the statements were false [and] admitted they had no basis in fact or reality.” The letter advises “that a claim may be brought against you.” (Or national attention for the threat may turn out to suffice.) It also lays out an argument that would have to be made before a court that McGinniss somehow “waived the attorney client privilege” when he made a casual reference in an email to what the Random House […]