The Supreme Court was supposed to consider the Authors Guild’s petition to have the high court hear their appeal of the Google Books scanning case at last Friday’s Conference — but when orders from that Conference were announced on Monday morning, the Guild’s case was not on the list. Presumably, that means consideration was postponed to the Court’s next Conference, on April 15, though there is no official update to the case docket yet. In a separate, long-running case, Eleventh Circuit District Judge Orinda Evans once again found mostly in favor of Georgia State University over a group of academic publishers […]
HarperCollins Officially Expands in France, and More
It’s book fair time — as the Bologna Book Fair officially opens — so Harper Collins has announced another expanded international unit. This time it is the formation of Harper Collins France. Previously, Harlequin SA was a joint venture in France with Hachette Livre, but Harper Collins bought out their partner. They will continue to work with Hachette in an “ongoing partnership for distribution and sales.” (They bought out Mondadori’s share of Harlequin Mondadori in September 2015, and they ended their joint venture in Brazil with Record Publishing Group — pairing instead with Ediuoro Group, last August. The new business will continue to publish […]
Hachette, Ingram Close Deals to Buy Perseus Units
As expected, the sale of the Perseus Books Group’s two business lines — its publishing divisions to Hachette Book Group and its distribution business to Ingram — officially closed (on Friday for HBG, and on Thursday for Ingram). First announced at the beginning of March (after a cancelled attempt in 2014), the deals make Perseus’ nine publishing imprints made into a “major new publishing division” of Hachette under longtime Perseus executive Susan Weinberg, now svp, publisher of Perseus Books and a member of HBG’s executive management board. Ingram, in turn, will combine the Perseus client service businesses, which have 600 publisher clients […]
April Bookseller Picks
Augusten Burroughs’ Lust & Wonder is Amazon‘s spotlight pick for April, and Lab Girl by Hope Jahren is their featured debut. The rest of their best books of the month are: Maestra, L.S. Hilton Dodgers, William Beverly Kill ‘Em and Leave ‘Em, James McBride Consequence, Eric Fair The Mathews Men, William Geroux The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, Dominic Smith Girls & Sex, Peggy Orenstein Rise of the Rocket Girls, Nathalia Holt A Burglar’s Guide to the City, Geoff Manaugh The iBooks Store is featuring these titles as the month’s best fiction: The Regional Office Is Under Attack!, Manuel Gonzales Eligible, Curtis Sittenfeld Daredevils, Shawn Vestal […]
People, Etc.
Allison Malec Renzulli will join Ten Speed Press as associate director of marketing on April 11, working out of Crown’s New York offices. Previously she was culinary marketing director at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. In addition, David Hawk has been promoted to assistant publicity director; Daniel Wikey moves up to marketing and publicity manager and Erin Welke has been promoted to publicity manager. PEN America announced it will honor Egyptian novelist Ahmed Naji with the 2016 PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award at its annual Literary Gala on May 16. Corporate Egmont sold its Czech subsidiary, with sales of close to $5 million, […]
Ingram Closes Deal to Buy Perseus Distribution Companies
Ingram announced on Thurday that it has completed the acquisition of Perseus’ distribution business. First announced at the beginning of March (after a cancelled attempt in 2014), will combine the Perseus client service businesses, which have 600 publisher clients through Perseus Distribution, Consortium, Publishers Group West, and Legato, and their distribution facility in Jackson, TN, with Ingram Publisher Services. “We’re delighted to officially welcome associates and clients of Perseus’ distribution businesses to Ingram,” Ingram Content Group chairman and ceo John Ingram said in the announcement. “Ingram’s center of gravity is shifting to one that is more focused on providing comprehensive […]