Early on during South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford’s disappearance his office assured reporters he was off working on a book. At a news conference Wednesday Sanford admitted to an extramarital affair (the cause of his leaving the country) and said he would resign his post as head of the Republican Governors Association. The NYT notes “the governor had been considered a rising star among conservatives, but this bizarre turn of events has changed his prospects, at least for the time being. At the end of the news conference, a reporter asked whether he would resign from his post as governor. […]
Free Indeed; Anderson's New Book Lifts Numerous Passages from Wikipedia
The Virginia Quarterly Review convincingly reproduces a number of incidences in Chris Anderson’s new book FREE: The Future of a Radical Price that reproduce nearly verbatim portions of a number of Wikipedia articles. Anderson admits fault via e-mail, saying “all those are my screwups after we decided not to run notes as planned, due to my inability to find a good citation format for web sources.” He intended to “do a write-through” of “source material without an individual author to credit (as in the case of Wikipedia),” and says that “obviously in my rush at the end I missed a […]
People: BN.com Names New Executive, and More
Jamie Iannone will serve as evp, shopping for Barnes & Noble.com & Barnes & Noble Digital, “responsible for meeting the buying needs, and shaping the shopping decisions, of visitors to Barnes & Noble.com. He reports to BN.com president William Lynch. Iannone was at eBay, where most recently he was vp of global search. Mary Faria is joining Simon & Schuster as director of mass merchandise/dsrm, children’s sales, reporting to Mary Marotta. Faria has held various sales positions at Harper Collins, Abrams and Little Brown. Also at S&S Children’s, Katherine Devendorf has been promoted to associate managing editor. Random House UK […]
Zinio Launches "Digital Bookstore" Section
The company that drives online replications of many leading magazines has extended its service model to books. With Harvard Common Press as its first client/partner, Zinio has added a digital cookbooks section to its web site. Featuring about 90 titles, the site sells them at a 20 percent discount to retail price. As with magazines, the pop-up Zinio reader flips pages with a click, and renders full-color replications of each book page in two-page spreads.AnnouncementZinio site
The Day the News Got Weird
There has been another rash of stories in traditional media about book proposals lately. One of the oddest involves deposed Miss California (and Miss USA runner-up) Carrie Prejean, who was fired by the pageant for alleged breach of contract. Prejean attracted controversy on a number of fronts, including her answer during the pageant opposing same-sex marriages in California. Recently US News & World Report reported she had a book proposal, aimed at conservative publishers. Now in a follow-up, Donald Trump’s Miss USA pageant says her book proposal is actually one of the reasons that she was fired. But Prejean’s attorney […]
Perseus Cuts Jobs, Imposes Furloughs
Perseus Books Group ceo David Steinberger announced “a reduction in staff” to employees last Thursday, along with “a summer furlough program, in order to limit the size of the reduction” with employees taking off no more than six unpaid days (including two extended holiday weekends). Steinberger also reported that “the senior leaders of the company have accepted a more significant compensation reduction to help prevent the company and our people from greater cuts.” Steinberger says “approximately 20 people are leaving the company” with “most reductions” coming from the company’s publishing units rather than the distribution services group. He indicates the […]