One of the bestselling inspirational books ever has turned from success to suits. As the LAT reports, author of The Shack William Paul Young is engaged in complex litigation against his former partners, Wayne Jacobsen and Brad Cummings at Windblown Media, and Hachette Book Group has been drawn in as well. The dispute, focused on money but also involving copyright and the movie rights, seems to stem from the original working agreement behind the book, which was an oral understanding arrived at long before the success that has led to sales of at least 8 million copies in the US […]
Waterstone’s to Freeze All Staff Pay
On the heels of another dismal quarterly report, Waterstone’s has confirmed that staff pay will be frozen this year. “No pay awards are being made across HMV Group this year as we continue to contain our costs,” a spokesperson to The Bookseller, revealing little more about the reasons for the across-the-board cost cuts. The move comes just a day after the bookstore chain announced it would open a movie theater in its flagship (and very large) Piccadilly branch after it signed an agreement with Curzon Artificial Eye.The Bookseller
The $99 E-Reader Has Arrived – Sort Of – and More eNews
Yesterday Amazon was selling refurbished Kindles through its warehouse at $109 (the company is now out of stock) but Books-a-Million customers can now buy the Sony 505 e-reader for $99 (or $89.10 for those with membership cards)AmazonBAMM The Entourage eDGe is priced nowhere near $99, but the dual-screen e-reader is now shipping from Best Buy.Listing The WSJ profiles a number of Japanese publishers tackling digital initiatives, including printing company Da Nippon, which announced last week that it would open Japan’s largest store for electronic books by the fall.WSJ A copyright infringement lawsuit launched by Zhonghua Book Company against Hanvon, the […]
People: Loehnen & Ferrari-Adler to S&S; New LAT Book Editor; Harvey Pekar Dies; and More
Simon & Schuster has named Ben Loehnen and Jofie Ferrari-Adler as senior editors for the adult trade imprint, reporting to Executive VP and Publisher Jonathan Karp. Loehnen joins from HarperCollins, where he has been since 2007, while Ferrari-Adler has spent the past four years at Grove/Atlantic. The Los Angeles Times has named Jon Thurber as its new Books Editor. He spent the past year as managing editor,print, and was previously obituaries editor for 11 years. Memo (via LA Observed) Mindy Chon has been appointed as manager, International Sales Operations for Random House, reporting to Cyrus Kheradi. Most recently she was […]
Sotomayor Memoir to Knopf
Knopf will publish a coming-of-age memoir by Sonia Sotomayor, in which she will detail growing up in the South Bronx as an American daughter of Puerto Rican immigrants and track the events that culminated in her recent appointment as a Supreme Court Judge. “Sonia Sotomayor has lived a remarkable life and her achievements will prove an inspiration to readers around the world,” said Sonny Mehta in yesterday’s release. “Hers is a triumph of the Latino experience in America.” Knopf acquired World rights from Peter Bernstein to the still-untitled book, which will be published simultaneously in a Spanish-language edition by Vintage […]
Details Emerge About Purported 4th Stieg Larsson Novel
The ongoing legal dispute between Stieg Larsson’s family and partner Eva Gabrielsson complicates the likelihood of the unfinished 4th Millenium novel purported to exist from being published anytime soon, but some details on the book have come to light from John-Henri Holmberg, a friend of Larsson’s dating back to their days attenting SF conventions in the 1970s. According to the AP, Holmberg received an e-mail about the book from Larsson less than a month before his death on Nov. 9, 2004, in which the author said he had completed 320 pages of the expected 440-page book, set in Canada “120 […]