Yesterday Serpent’s Tail announced that THE PASSPORT, Nobel winner Herta Mueller’s her first book in English translation, originally published by them in 1989, will be reissued October 19th as a $12.95 paperback. Macmillan tells Bloomberg that they are reprinting 5,000 hardcover copies each of the THE LAND OF GREEN PLUMS (Northwestern University Press has the paperback rights, as noted yesterday, and is reprinting 20,000 copies) and THE APPOINTMENT, along with 20,000 paperbacks of the latter. Northwestern tells Bloomberg they are also negotiating to reprint TRAVELING ON ONE LEG. And the University of Nebraska Press reminded the trade they have Mueller’s […]
New Releases/Forthcoming
Announcements: Hefty Printing for Wimpy Kid, and More
Abrams announced a four-million-copy laydown for Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days on Monday, October 12. And the publisher reports “more than 300,000 reservations” of copies. Separately, Hachette Book Group is expanding their distribution relationship with Chronicle Books (and Chronicle’s own roster of distribution clients) to include sales and distribution immediately in Latin America; and starting January 1 in the Middle East and Caribbean. In personnel news, Quill & Quire reported that Raincoast Books founder and ceo Allan MacDougall, 62, has stepped down. VP and business manager John Sawyer, “who had been handling most of the day-to-day operations for […]
Judge Denies Cryogenics Company Alcor's Effort to Block Whistleblower's Book
As threatened last week, Alcor Life Extension filed suit in New York Supreme Court against author (and former company coo) Larry Johnson and publisher Vanguard Press, seeking a preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order blocking today’s publication of his book FROZEN: My Journey Into the World of Cryonics, Deception and Death. After hearing oral arguments on Monday, Judge James Yates denied the motion, unwilling to exercise prior restraint. The book received pre-publication attention over the weekend following reports that the book alleges the Arizona cryonics business mistreated the frozen head of former baseball great Ted Williams, hitting his head with […]
Palin Goin' Early
Sarah Palin completed her manuscript ahead of schedule after working with collaborator Lynn Vincent and Harper has moved up the release date from next spring to November 17. The publisher has announced a planned 1.5 million-copy first printing of GOING ROGUE: An American Life. They will not make an e-book available until December 26, the AP reports, in order “to maximize hardcover sales over the holidays” according to spokesperson Tina Andreadis.AP
Over 2 Million Units for Dan Brown, and More Numbers from Publishing's Big Week
Yesterday Random House announced sales of “more than two million” units of Dan Brown’s THE LOST SYMBOL in all editions (including audio and ebook) throughout the world in the first week on sale, through Monday. They call it “the biggest one-week sale in Random House history for a single title.” Per yesterday’s Lunch, Nielsen BookScan UK reports through The Bookseller that over a quarter of those units–at least 551,000 copies–were sold in the UK. Doubleday’s Suzanne Herz indicated to the AP that “around 5 percent, or 100,000 copies” were sold as ebooks, and the WSJ confirms that sales within the […]
Amazon Says That, Excluding Pre-Orders, Lost Symbol Sold More Kindle Units on Day One than Print Books
Calling it “the big surprise” (if they do say so themselves)–and pretty much confirming the importance of those pre-publication deliberations on issuing a simultaneous ebook edition–Amazon makes this report by e-mail to the WSJ. Of course the pre-orders were significant, so that exclusion is a big one. Also, Doubleday clarified yesterday afternoon that they sold over 1 million units–print and electronic–in the book’s first day on sale. Separately, while Twelve declined to quantify opening results for Ted Kennedy’s TRUE COMPASS, spokesman Cary Goldstein says “our opening day reports have unquestionably exceeded expectations.”