Hachette Book Group shared their environmental progress report for 2022-2023. “HBG’s environmental initiatives span many different areas, including paper sourcing, office recycling, energy usage, product transportation, and packaging,” they write. The company notes that in the past two years, all of their paper came from Forest Stewardship Certified and Sustainable Forestry Initiative fiber. In 2022 8.6 percent of their paper was recycled fiber, with 5.2 percent in 2023. (The company notes that there was a decline in the availability of recycled paper this year.) They also avoid using paper from endangered forests. “We remain committed to purchasing recycled papers when they […]
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SPD Website Experiences Cyber Attack
The Small Press Distribution (SPD) website experienced a denial-of-service attack on Friday, disabling the site, ordering system, and email communications. No customer data or private information was compromised, the company said, and the website was back up and running on Sunday evening. Executive director Kent Watson stated, “This attack comes at a very busy time as SPD continues to pick, pack, and ship books for hundreds of presses. Senseless acts like this harm independent publishers, booksellers, and readers.”
Entangled Is Working On A Solution to ‘Iron Flame’ Misprints
Entangled Publishing said in a statement that it’s working to correct misprints in the new Rebecca Yarros novel Iron Flame that published on November 7. Entangled reportedly indicated the book sold more than half a million copies on its release day, and some of the copies had irregularities including damaged pages, missing pages, upside down pages, and more, which readers catalogued on TikTok. In a statement to Variety, the company acknowledged that the misprints “have caused disappointment among those who eagerly awaited this release.” They write, “In keeping with our values of quality and responsibility, we are committed to making […]
Goodreads Launches New Policies to Combat Review Bombing
Goodreads posted an announcement on October 30 introducing its new policies about review authenticity, which aim to combat review bombing. They write: “Earlier this year, we launched the ability to temporarily limit submission of ratings and reviews on a book during times of unusual activity that violate our guidelines, including instances of ‘review bombing.’ This kind of activity is not tolerated on Goodreads and it diminishes the community’s trust in people who participate. We are currently in the process of removing ratings and reviews added during times of previous unusual activity that violate our guidelines.” The announcement also states that […]
Harper Will No Longer Publish Book About Jamal Khashoggi
Harper Collins will no longer publish SAY YOUR WORD, THEN LEAVE: The Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi and the Power of the Truth by Karen Attiah, the author shared on social media. Attiah was Khashoggi’s friend and editor at the Washington Post. “After nearly four years of writing the book, meeting every deadline, my (now former) publisher inexplicably stopped the editing process, forcing me to pull the book,” she wrote. The book, which was sold by Anthony Mattero at CAA to Dey Street in 2019, was slated for publication in February 2024 but no longer appears on retailer sites or the […]
Managers to Decide on S&S’s Return to Office Policies
In a memo today, Simon & Schuster ceo Jonathan Karp advised staff on the future of in-office work for the company, taking a “departmental approach.” Working from the office had been voluntary for most employees throughout the lengthy sale process. Managers will determine the schedule for their teams, which may be fully in person, 2 to 3 days in the office, or fully remote. In the NYC office in Rockefeller Center, employees who are not coming in at least two days a week by December 1 will forfeit their office space and “share new office space, which will be created […]