US Southern District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin dismissed a lawsuit brought the estate of Adrian Jacobs, author of the 1987 book Willy the Wizard, alleging that his copyright was infringed by HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE. Judge Scheindlin concluded that “the contrast between the total concept and feel of the works is so stark that any serious comparison of the two strains credulity.” A similar, earlier lawsuit in the UK against Bloomsbury and JK Rowling was allowed to go forward last October if the estate paid money as security for the costs (since in the UK, the loser pays). […]
Evison Tops February Indie Next List
#1 February Pick: West of Here: A Novel, by Jonathan Evison Little Princes: One Man’s Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal, by Conor Grennan You Know When the Men Are Gone, by Siobhan Fallon The Fates Will Find Their Way: A Novel, by Hannah Pittard The Weird Sisters: A Novel, by Eleanor Brown The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore: A Novel, by Benjamin Hale A Discovery of Witches: A Novel, by Deborah Harkness The Death Instinct: A Novel, by Jed Rubenfeld Agent X: A Novel, by Noah Boyd Swamplandia!: A Novel, by Karen Russell The Red Garden, by […]
BN December Store Comps Were Up Almost 13%; BN.com Gains 67 Percent Over Holidays
As promised, Barnes & Noble released a somewhat more detailed report on holiday sales this morning for the nine-week period ending January 1. The company’s bookstores had their “best [holiday] comparable store sales performance in more than a decade,” up 9.7 percent on a same-store basis and 8.2 percent overall. For December alone, comp sales rose even more, at 12.8 percent. While Nook devices accounted for much of the increase, the company says “physical book sales, especially hardcover books, were better than expected,” and their expanded toys & games department increased sales by 48 percent. Total holiday store sales were […]
eAnnouncements: Kobo Aims for 20 Million, Disney Downloads 1 Million
One of our quiet New Year’s resolutions was to take this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in moderate stride, since experience has shown a lot of what will be presented there is either overhyped, coming later, or not coming at all (as you enjoy your many oversized eInk readers and 3-D television sets). So we’ll try to keep our focus on things that belong on book publishing radar. In brief, Kobo trumpets non-specific “relationships with over a dozen partners” that they estimate will result in Kobo apps “preloaded on 20 million devices this year.” Those partners include tablet-makers (such as the […]
People, Etc.
Joanne Wyckoff has joined the Carol Mann Agency as an agent, continuing to represents a wide array of nonfiction and selected fiction. Since 2005, she has been an agent with Zachary Shuster Harmsworth, in their Boston office. The peripatetic Adam Korn is leaving literary agency DeFiore and Company to return to the editorial side, rejoining HarperCollins–this time as executive editor for William Morrow, starting January 18. Penguin UK Children’s managing director Stephanie Barton is leaving to “embark upon a new challenge” after 26 years with the company, the Bookseller reports. Puffin managing director Francesca Dow moves up to fill Barton’s […]
2010’s Top Bestsellers
Nielsen BookScan published today point-of-sales data for the week ending January 2, 2010, and updated their corresponding year-to-date bestseller lists to cover all 52 selling weeks of 2010. You will find below the top 15 print books as tracked by Nielsen BookScan in the outlets they cover for adult nonfiction, adult fiction, and overall juvenile titles. Former president George W. Bush and former first lady Laura Bush both make an otherwise eclectic nonfiction list, as Mr. Bush’s chart-topping book well outsold last year’s No. 1 nonfiction title by Sarah Palin. As expected, Stieg Larsson dominates the fiction list, with the […]