The 39th annual meeting of the Association of American Publishers began in New York city this morning before about 150 industry executives with an appreciative farewell to outgoing president Pat Schroeder, the late addition to the program of a brief address on education from former US president Bill Clinton, and an interview between AAP chairman Richard Sarnoff and Google svp for corporate development and chief legal officer David Drummond who noted, with at least an element of seriousness, “I was scheduled to be at this meeting last year” to discuss the settlement of publishers’ lawsuits. Reflecting on the busy year […]
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Clinton to Address AAP Meeting
The AAP has announced former President Bill Clinton as a late addition to the schedule for tomorrow’s annual meeting, where he will “share his views on the current state of education and what lies ahead.”
The Success of #queryfail
Fast-growing Twitter may have found one of its best uses in publishing yesterday as agents, editors and writers found themselves curiously obsessed with a #queryfail thread started by agent Colleen Lindsay. As she described it on her blog, “a group of online agents, book editors and periodicals acquisition editors are posting about their queries in real time. The idea is to educate people about what exactly it is in a query that made us stop reading and say ‘Not for me.'” Or at least make people laugh. As a taste, we pulled a selection of our favorite lines and stitched […]
NYT Unloads on Discrepancies in Minor-League Baseball Memoir
Matt McCarthy’s recently-published ODD MAN OUT, his “his salacious memoir of his summer as an obscure minor league pitcher,” is full of “wide-ranging errors and misquotations” according to the NYT. “Statistics from that season, transaction listings and interviews with his former teammates indicate that many portions of the book are incorrect, embellished or impossible.” Are they minor chronological errors and the complaints of those who are depicted in an unflattering light, or indications of a seriously flawed or even invented narrative? The newspaper clearly implies the latter–but would they have treated Ball Four the same way if it were published […]
Agent Weisfeld Sues Faber and Author Lowe
Jarred Weisfeld at Objective Entertainment filed suit in a New York state court yesterday against FSG’s Faber imprint and Jamie Lowe, author of DIGGING FOR DIRT: The Life and Death of ODB (aka Ol’ Dirty Bastard, aka the late Russell Jones), alleging “malicious, false, defamatory and anti-semitic statements” and seeking damags of at least $10 million. The complaint says that Weisfeld is depicted “as a money hungry Jewish manager who was financially invested in ODB’s very soul,” and alleges that the basis of that description comes not from an actual press conference but rather from a parody depiction of that […]
Announcements
Encounter Books will move sales and distribution from NBN to Perseus Distribution as of August 1. Publisher Roger Kimball notes in the announcement, “Encounter has been seeking to raise its profile and discover effective new avenues to bring its wares to a broader audience…. Their combination of enthusiasm and pragmatism is as refreshing as it is rare.” Simon & Schuster has launched a 365 Crosswords puzzle app on the Apple App Store, selling for $4.99. Penguin’s new “especial” on sale tomorrow is Nalini Singh’s novella ANGELS’ PAWN (angels and vampires together in one package), a prequel to her new Guild […]