News

We often get asked who in publishing is doing interesting things and where to find innovation of note and often there are not a lot of great answers. Last year was unusual, however, in that a lot interesting things happened and there’s been very little attention paid — so we thought it was worth a quick review to underscore some of these potentially powerful new ideas at work in the marketplace. Two of the hottest imprints came from outside the mainstream of big five publishing. Sourcebooks’ Bloom Books imprint was on track to register close to $100 million in gross […]

The Authors Guild Foundation announced a $10 million “capacity building” campaign—the largest ever for the organization. The foundation has already received more than $5.6 million from prominent authors including David and Michelle Baldacci, Suzanne Collins and Charles “Cap” Pryor, John and Renee Grisham, James Patterson, and Doug and Christine Preston, who pledged to donate $1 million each. The organization says that $3 million will go “to increase services, legal and support staff, and advocacy initiatives,” and $7 million will fund an endowment “to support the Guild in perpetuity.” Other major donors so far include Judy Blume, who has designated her […]

On Friday, the Book Industry Study Group hosted a series of talks and panels calling for the development of industry-wide standards for publishing rights management, including identification codes for entire book projects (unlike ISBNs, which denote individual editions) and an independent standards organization to govern them. A potential model from the music industry was discussed, and BISG rights committee members reported on their ongoing initiatives. Juergen Boos, president and CEO of the Frankfurt Book Fair, delivered brief opening remarks. He said the fair’s mission was to connect industry players from all over the world, and online platforms that simplify administrative […]

In a note welcoming employees back from the holidays, Penguin Random House ceo Nihar Malaviya shared three “company-wide action areas” that management has decided to focus on based on the 2023 employee survey. One focus will be on company strategy, in order to “create greater clarity about the global strategy by increasing the frequency of both local and global strategy communications.” Another item is “psychological safety—emphasis on feedback culture.” He writes that they will “continue to work on creating an inclusive and psychologically safe environment for employees at every level, one that fosters the free exchange of feedback, ideas, and […]

As usual, thousands of copyrighted works from 1928 will enter the public domain in the US on January 1, becoming free for all to copy and share. Notable books entering the public domain include D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover; Virginia Woolf’s Orlando; W.E.B. Du Bois’s Dark Princess; A.A. Milne’s House at Pooh Corner (featuring illustrations by E.H. Shepard); Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall; Agatha Christie’s The Mystery of the Blue Train; and more.

Small Beer Press, which closed for submissions in March 2023, will likely cease publication permanently due to the publisher’s health problems. Publisher Gavin Grant has experienced health complications caused by Covid-19. He wrote, “In 2022 we only managed to publish two books. This year we published four and here at the end of the year I see how much these books missed the old me…. I’d thought there was a chance I could keep Small Beer going but it is too much for me. As long as the authors are happy, we’ll keep the books in print—or sell them on […]