The New Yorker has officially named their list of 20 fiction writers under the age of 40 to watch. As the NY Observer first reported and the NYT reminds us subtlety, this is not a purely editorially driven list, but rather a list of writers they like who were willing and able to provide them an unpublished work to run in the magazine. Eight of those stories will run in next week’s fiction issue; the remaining 12 will appear in the magazine throughout the summer. The winners are: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, 32Chris Adrian, 39Daniel Alarcón, 33David Bezmozgis, 37Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, […]
Financials: $4 Mil for Open Road; $10 Mil for BookRenter; An IPO for Nielsen
Open Road Integrated Media has received a second round of funding, getting another $4 million from Kohlberg Ventures, which also provided the start-up’s original $3 million in capital. Jim Kohlberg at Kohlberg Ventures says in the announcement “with the convergence of expanding device options and the rapid adoption of ebooks, we strongly believe that the Open Road model and its team are uniquely positioned to succeed in the marketplace. We are pleased to continue our support through additional funding.” BookRenter has collected even more, raising $10 million in their latest financing, led by Norwest Venture Partners, with follow-on investments from […]
Final BEA Stats Use New Measure to Count Almost 22,000 Attendees
BookExpo America (BEA) officials said this morning that verified attendance at this year’s show was 21,919 people. Exhibitors comprised just over 8,000 people, with all other “industry professionals” comprising 13,872 people in all. For the first time, the show is tabulating all people who actually attend the show. In the past BEA has provided a breakout of registrants for their “book buyer” category (which includes librarians), but now spokesman Roger Bilheimer says “we have decided that while the book buyer number is a standard of measurement that is important, it is not the only standard of measurement. In that sense, […]
People, Etc.
Ron Hogan has left Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s trade and reference division, where he was director of e-marketing strategy. Adrienne Schultz, most recently an editor at Portfolio, has left Penguin to begin freelance editing. At Dutton, Carrie Swetonic has been promoted to associate marketing director. Del Commune Enterprises is now scouting for Rowohlt Verlag in Germany. Alison Brook is joining Harper New Zealand in the new position of head of publishing, reporting to managing director Tony Fisk. She was publisher, nonfiction at Penguin New Zealand. In the UK, Nick Davies has been promoted to publishing director for nonfiction at Canongate. And […]
S&S Release eBooks of McMurtry Backlist
As of today Simon & Schuster has issued all of their Larry McMurtry backlist in ebook editions. Later this month they will release two ebook “boxed” bundles of the Lonesome Dove series (comprising four titles, for $36.99) and the five-book Berrybender Narratives, at $31.99. They will also publish a 25th anniversary trade paperback edition of LONESOME DOVE with a new introduction on June 15.
Texas Attorney General Probes Agency Model and Apple
As reported in May, Apple is said to be the target of one potential Federal Trade Commission inquiry into their new requirements for software developers building apps for the iPhone operating system, and a second antitrust inquiry from the Department of Justice over their online music business. At least a few publishing eyebrows were raised last week when the NYT reported that “investigators had asked in particular about recent allegations that Apple used its dominant market position to persuade music labels to refuse to give the online retailer Amazon.com exclusive access to music about to be released.” Now Publishers Lunch […]