Kate Hamill is leaving her position as editor at It Books/HarperCollins, where she acquired the #1 NYT bestseller SH*T MY DAD SAYS, to join the business development team of the social publishing and reading site Scribd. Her last day is tomorrow. Going forward, she can be reached at kate@scribd.com. Joe Gores, a three-time Edgar Award winner and most recently, the author of SPADE AND ARCHER, the authorized prequel to THE MALTESE FALCON, died Monday. He was 79 and had been in poor health in recent years. A memorial mass will be held on Friday January 21 at 11:30 a.m. at […]
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The Mystery Bookstore To Close on January 31
Just days after Borders closed its Westwood store, the west side Los Angeles neighborhood learned it will lose another: The Mystery Bookstore will close its doors on January 31. In a note to authors and customers sent Tuesday afternoon, owners Kirk Pasich and Pamela Woods said, “We simply cannot compete with the Amazons of the world and the impact of the economy.” A note on the store’s website adds “We’ve been proud and grateful to serve you. We treasure the friendships we’ve made through the store, and hope to keep them, wherever we all scatter, as we keep reading and […]
Author News: Salinger Estate Settles With Colting; Coehlo Books Banned in Iran; and More
On December 7, the JD Salinger Estate quietly settled with Frederik Colting, author of the unauthorized Catcher in The Rye sequel 60 Years Later. According to the agreement, Colting will be prevented “from manufacturing, publishing, distributing, shipping, advertising, promoting, selling, or otherwise disseminating any copy of the book 60 Years Later, by Fredrik Colting writing under the name of J.D. California, or any portion thereof, in or to the United States.” Colting is, however, free to sell the book in international territories, and PW reports that is the case in at least a half-dozen countries.PWSettlement agreement Paulo Coehlo accused Iran, […]
Sarnoff Leaves Bertelsmann for KKR
Longtime top Bertelsmann executive Richard Sarnoff will leave his positions as co-chairman of Bertelsmann, Inc., the company’s North American division, and president of Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments at the end of January to join both Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and their affiliate Weld North as a senior advisor. (Bertelsmann is already a partner with KKR in the music-publishing joint venture BMG, and Sarnoff will join that entity’s board on KKR’s behalf.) Bertelsmann chief financial officer Thomas Rabe will take over leadership of BDMI, which has invested in companies including Trion, Mojiva, Qeep, American Reading Company, Vindicia, and RoyaltyShare. Sarnoff spent much […]
Key Porter Confirms It Will Suspend Operations
Key Porter Books confirmed on Friday that it will suspend operations while it considers “a number of restructuring options.” In a statement publisher Jordan Fenn said that Key Porter will not publish any new books going forward, but the company “is supporting its authors through the continued marketing and sale of previously published works and distribution through H.B. Fenn and Company Ltd.” A number of options are being considered, including selling off some key titles. Key Porter had laid off editor-in-chief Linda Pruessen, its last remaining editorial staffer, on December 16. The company was also supposed to publish Mark Bourrie’s […]
Simon & Schuster’s Reidy: “The Year…Publishing Changed Irrevocably”
Carolyn Reidy tells employees in her year-end letter that they will be “surpassing our prior year by a large margin,” noting, “I am confident that this year will be remembered as the year in which publishing changed irrevocably. After a full decade of speculation concerning how or even if we could manage the transition to a digital age, this year digital publishing really took off; there is no doubt that its steep growth trajectory will continue for the foreseeable future.” But “the bricks-and-mortar bookselling environment continued to lag previous years, and this is reflected in revenues lower than we’d like.” […]