Makers of the slow-to-grow Espresso Book Machine On Demand Books announced a sales and marketing partnership with Xerox that could add some muscle to the company’s efforts. Together they will sell a high-speed Xerox copier/printer that they say can print approximately 40,000 300-page books a year, paired with On Demand’s finishing machine and software. That is a significantly higher capacity than is provided by the other printers that have traditionally been paired with On Demand’s finisher–though the new package is more expensive, too, adding approximately $20,000 to the roughly $100,000 cost of the current full package from On Demand. Presumably, […]
Proposal News
Ken Atchity at Atchity Entertainment International is launching a simultaneous pitch to New York publishers and Hollywood studios for the posthumously-completed manuscript of NYT-bestselling author William Diehl’s SEVEN WAYS TO DIE. Prior to his death in 2006, Diehl had written over 400 pages of manuscript, and left behind a working outline, notes and chapter drafts. AEI worked with Diehl and his screenwriting partner Michael Simpson, and along with his Cairo Simpson Entertainment took over the literary estate from William Morris. AEI and Simpson’s Informant Media (“Crazy Heart”) are currently producing Diehl’s Eureka. Informant also optioned Diehl’s Hooligans; Scott Abramovich’s Breaking […]
Notes
At Penguin Classics, John Siciliano has been promoted to senior editor. The announced one-million-copy first printing for Cornelia Funke’s fall release RECKLESS is a worldwide number covering projections for all of the initial laydown markets.
Memorial Service for Karen Hansgen
Associate publisher of Skira Rizzoli Publications Karen Hansgen died on Sunday, January 10. Her family has just announced a memorial service for her tomorrow, on Friday, January 15 at 2:00 PM at: Brooklyn Friends Meeting House110 Schermerhorn StreetBrooklyn, New York 11201(718) 788-5990
People, and A New Funke
Laney Katz Becker has joined the Markson Thoma Literary Agency as an agent. She was previously at Folio Literary Management. Former publisher of Harcourt Children’s Lori Benton has joined educational children’s publisher Capstone as general manager/publisher of their fiction imprints, which include Stone Arch Books and Picture Window Books.Cornelia Funke‘s next book RECKLESS (and the first in a new series) will have an international laydown on September 14. Little, Brown Children’s says they will print a million copies for the US market, joined on publication date with releases from Chicken House in the UK and Dressler in Germany. The book […]
At EMPG, Master Trader Paulson Prepares to Take Control, with Plan to Recapitalize Houghton After Existing Investors Are Gone
As more details come to light on the pending restructuring of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt parent Education Media and Publishing Group (EMPG), the storyline moves from Barry O’Callaghan’s financial folly to hedge fund operator John Paulson’s perverse market triumph. (Paulson is the guy who made billions by betting the right way on the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market, a tale told in Gregory Zuckerman’s THE GREATEST TRADE EVER and also examined in this week’s Malcolm Gladwell piece on entrepreneurs and risk-taking in the New Yorker.) Here is the picture that has emerged since yesterday’s Lunch report. EMPG confirmed that they […]