The pre-pub Laura Bush coverage continues. The Washington Post bought a copy locally, and shares more samples of the book than yesterday’s NYT report. “There is some startling stuff in here, perhaps more startling to me, who spent much of my time as a reporter covering Bush and as a writer researching her biography, searching for a shard or two of information that might reveal more about this intensely reticent and unassuming woman…. And there are some pointed choices and some unflinching honesty.” What isn’t in there? “In 432 pages, there are three brief mentions of Barack Obama.” The AP […]
People, etc.
Lara Lea Allen is joining Barer Literary as foreign rights director. She was sssociate director of foreign rights at Trident Media Group. Barer Literary’s UK rights will continue to be handled by Caspian Dennis at Abner Stein. Marissa Walsh has joined FinePrint Literary Management as a literary agent, focusing on children’s picture books, middle-grade and YA, along with pop culture, humor, narrative non-fiction, and memoir. Most recently she was an editor at Delacorte Press/Random House Children’s Books for seven years. Scott Turow was formally elected president of the Authors Guild, taking over from Roy Blount, who served for four years. […]
Awards: Sci-Fi, First Novel, and Edgars Ahead
China Mieville won the Arthur C Clarke sci-fi award for a record third time, for The City & the City. In Canada, Jessica Grant won the Amazon.ca First Novel Award for Come, Thou Tortoise (Knopf Canada). The WSJ considers tonight’s Edgar Awards, and notes after surveying past results that “winners at tonight’s annual Edgar Awards, presented by the Mystery Writers of America, should relish the victory–the first Edgar is often the last.” The only author to win both best first novel and best novel during their career is Ross Thomas.WSJ
Waterstone's Same-Store Decline "Improves" to -4.8 Percent
In a preliminary report of annual results, Waterstone’s parent HMW is claiming that bookstore sales are improving, with same-store sales for the 16-weeks ending April 24 down 4.8 percent–which is indeed better than the full-year same-store decline of 6.2 percent, and also an improvement over the poor Christmas holiday comp decline of 8.9 percent. Overall bookstore sales for the year are down 6 percent as well. It’s the second straight annual decline for the chain. Though they did not report actual figures today, based on last year’s numbers, sales will be down to approximately 515 million pounds for the year. […]
eNews: Penguin Has Most iBooks Available; Kindle Upgrades Software
In more stats analyzing the iBookstore, O’Reilly’s Radar shows general fiction as the dominant category by far, with 30% of all titles. Adding other fiction genres brings the total close to 50 percent. A chart of market share by publishers has Penguin Group on top with 23.5 percent of available titles. (As we’ve told O’Reilly, they need to bundle imprints together with their imprints, which is currently inconsistent–they will fix that later.) S&S has over 21 percent and HarperCollins has about 18.5 percent. The biggest surprise could be Smashwords’ 5.2 percent share–or maybe it’s the confirmation that very few publishers […]
NYT Breaks Laura Bush Embargo
Once again, the NYT has “obtained” (which doesn’t sound like “purchased”) a pre-embargo copy of Laura Bush’s memoir SPOKEN FROM THE HEART, in advance of the book’s May 4 publication. (Too bad it’s not an iPhone protoype, or Scribner would have a shot at getting it back.) While the paper’s story is attracting reasonable interest, we got a lot more Twitter-play yesterday by focusing on the question raised at Amazon’s Omnivoracious. They noted that their “fascination with the cover for Laura Bush’s upcoming memoir…touched a nerve with a few readers and emailers.” The big question: “I can’t decide if it’s […]