After a slow-motion launch earlier this year, Rosetta Solution’s Net Galley–designed as both an electronic galley system as well as a review-workflow product for publishers–is being taken over on an operational basis by Firebrand Technologies. Constructed as a joint venture called NetGalley LLC, Firebrand’s Fran Toolan will serve as ceo of the new entity, though most of the team that launched NetGalley will remain with the company. Toolan indicated in a preliminary bulletin to customers that Firebrand intends to integrate NetGalley with its title management and metadata management products. He says, “From every angle this seems like a natural fit […]
Le Clezio: Make Books Available
Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio delivered his Nobel lecture this weekend. In a portion of the speech focused on publishers, he said that “to provide nearly everyone on the planet with a liquid crystal display is utopian.” The Internet and “virtual communication” are “a good thing, but what would these astonishing inventions be worth, were it not for the teachings of written language and books?” He argued that publishers should spread books themselves, and translations of voices and small, throughout the world: “Culture on a global scale concerns us all. But it is above all the responsibility of readers–of publishers, in […]
"The Most Dangerous Man in Publishing"
In a year of honors for former Grove publisher Barney Rosset, Newsweek has a long feature article: “On a recent afternoon, Rosset sat on a worn leather couch with a book of Beckett’s and a binder of his letters with the Nobel laureate. He was working on his autobiography, The Subject Is Left-Handed–a title taken from his FBI file, which his wife, Astrid Myers, was paging through at a small table nearby. Rosset has been working on the book for years. ‘I don’t know what the publisher wants,’ he said. ‘No idea. Been in the same job for many years–I […]
People
PeopleMary McGrath is joining Simon & Schuster as director of DSRM, Children’s Sales, reporting to Mary Marotta. She has been at Random House for 17 years and for the past five was the director of sales, adult mass merchandise. PW has named Amazon ceo Jeff Bezos as their “person of the year.” Primarily a rehash of things you already know, they do elicit a few interesting remarks from Bezos in an interview. Speaking of physical book sales, he notes that despite Amazon’s deep selection, “the vast majority of sales is in the top tens of thousands of titles, not throughout […]
RBI: One Bidder Left
The Independent says that Bain Capital is the only remaining bidder for Reed Elsevier’s magazine unit, as TPG has dropped out. Facing a bid of about $1 billion–half of what they were hoping for, “Reed Elsevier is understood to be unhappy with some of the conditions of Bain’s bid, which includes a complicated earn-out structure – a move that would effectively tie key executives to RBI for a number of years.” They also report that ceo Crispin Davis has “invited” Apollo Group–which dropped out of the bidding earlier in the year (featured in the Sunday’s NYT business section for their […]
Washington Post's Ten Best, and More Picks
FictionCost, by Roxana RobinsonThe Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel BarberyA Mercy, Toni MorrisonThe Outlander, Gil Adamson2666 Robert Bolano NonfictionThe Eaves of Heaven: A Life in Three Wars, by Andrew PhamThe Hemingses of Monticello, by Annette Gordon-ReedLincoln: The Biography of a Writer, by Fred KaplanOne Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Krushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War, by Michael DobbsWords in the Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell, ed. by Thomas Travisano Full list As usual, New York Magazine puts a quirky gloss on loving the same books this year as all the other critics: […]