Amazon ceo Jeff Bezos released his annual shareholder letter on Wednesday, revealing for the first time that has more than 100 million paid Prime members globally. In another, less widely-reported statistic, Bezos wrote that over 1,000 Kindle Direct Publishing authors earned over $100,000 in royalties in 2017 (thus comprising over $100 million). Beyond that, third-party…
Regan Says HarperCollins Would Not Allow Janice Dickinson to Accuse Bill Cosby of Rape In Memoir
Publisher Judith Regan testified in the retrial of Bill Cosby on sexual-assault charges in Norristown, PA on Wednesday, supporting Janice Dickinson’s account that she had long claimed Cosby raped her, even though that’s not what her 2002 memoir No Lifeguard on Duty said. “I remember at one point she [Dickinson] told me she’d been raped…
Former Perseus Executives Sue to Collect Sale Bonuses
In mid-March, the three top former executives of the Perseus Books Group — ceo David Steinberger, cfo Charles Gallagher and cmo Rick Joyce — sued Perseus Books, LLC and Centre Lane Partners, the private equity company that had owned the publisher, in New York State Supreme Court. They are seeking payment of additional stay bonuses…
People, Etc.
At Workman Publishing, Page Edmunds has been promoted to executive associate publisher; Danny Cooper becomes editor; Kylie McDonald move up to senior editor, director of cookbooks; Rachael Mt. Pleasant has been promoted to editor; Megan Nicolay becomes executive editor; and Maisie Tivnan moves up to executive editor. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt announced a number of recent promotions in their sales department. Colleen Murphy has been promoted to…
Harper’s Magazine Fires Editor James Marcus
Subsequent to our brief note from Monday that Harper’s Magazine editor James Marcus has left the publication, Marcus tells PL that he was fired on Friday afternoon, for “opposing the publication of Katie Roiphe’s cover story in the March issue.” The article, “The Other Whisper Network: How Twitter feminism is bad for women,” drew criticism online…
Rudin Countersues Lee Estate, Wants to Perform Mockingbird for the Court
Scott Rudin’s production company Rudinplay has countersued the estate of Harper Lee and its representative Tonja Carter in a New York Federal Court, as part of their response to the lawsuit filed against Rudin in March in an Alabama Federal Court looking for a judgment that the planned Broadway adaptation of To Kill A Mockingbird…