At Abrams, publisher Steve Tager takes on the new role of chief marketing and business development officer, focused on driving new business initiatives, including exploiting company’s digital assets. The marketing and publicity departments will also report to him. Deborah Aaronson takes over as vp, publisher for the adult trade group. She has been with the company since 2000. Elisa Urbanelli returns to the company as associate publisher for the adult group, also acquiring in categories including art and museum publications. She was previously a managing editor for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and most recently was a freelance […]
Army Officer Is Cleared to Sue for Right to Publish Unredacted Version of His Book
One of the stranger cases of government censorship is back in the news, as Army Reserve Lt. Colonel Anthony Shaffer has been granted standing to sue the Defense Intelligence Agency in an effort to publish an unredacted version of his 2010 book OPERATION DARK HEART. The judge correctly recognized that Shaffer did not sell all of his rights to his publisher (as the government argued), he licensed a limited basket of rights: “Mr. Shaffer wrote and wants to publish his complete book as originally approved by the Army. There is no doubt that the Defendant Agencies are preventing him from […]
Milestones, Missed
Like many of you we’re still working on getting back to normal after the storm. Along the way we missed taking note of a variety of interesting milestones. Most importantly, we missed our very own anniversary, marking 11 lucky years of PublishersMarketplace.com. As members may recall, we often try to schedule a technological gift or two in alignment with our birthday. We have a big one on the way this year, which will truly offer “something for everyone,” but storm delays have bumped the unveiling to next month. (There are some other surprises in the works for early next year, […]
Trade Publishing Rebounds at Lagardere; Bertelsmann Gains on Subdued Outlook
After a weak second quarter, trade publishing sales rebounded as expected for Lagardere Publishing, with revenues of 626 million euros for third quarter. That’s a 4.1 percent gain over sales of 601 million euros a year ago, when the company had a particular weak third quarter; sales are still below the same period from 2010, and only gained one-tenth of a percent after the effects of currency exchange. Results were boosted by the release of JK Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy right before the end of the quarter, raising trade sales by 7.3 percent in the US, 17 percent in the […]
UK Committee Aims to Embarrass Amazon and Google for Avoiding UK Taxes
The British Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee staged a nice bit of theater Monday, designed to embarrass large multinationals that conduct significant business in the UK while paying little or no income tax–but in the end the government may simply embarrass itself. Testimony was elicited from officials from Google, Starbucks and Amazon, though it’s not clear that the committee has the power to compel these companies to say anything other than what they have already stated publicly. Amazon’s Brussels-based director of public policy Andrew Cecil declined to disclose their UK sales multiple times, saying “We have not disclosed those figures ever publicly.” By all […]
Barnes & Noble Picks 2012 Favorites, Too
Barnes & Noble also posted their lists of favorite books of the year, highlighting 146 books in all across four categories (they just haven’t sent out a press release about it yet, so they have gotten less attention for their lists than Amazon). To be roughly equal with our Amazon list, here are their first 15 picks for both fiction and nonfiction: Fiction Winter of the World, Ken Follett Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn The Light Between Oceans, M.L. Stedman Shadow of Night, Deborah Harkness Defending Jacob, William Landay This Is How You Lose Her, Junot Díaz The Wind through the […]