Olsson’s Books and Records closed all five of their remaining stores yesterday and petitioned the bankruptcy to turn their Chapter 11 filing back into a Chapter 7 liquidation. In a posting on their web site, the company cites “stagnant sales, low cash reserves, and an inability to renegotiate current leases, along with a continuing weak retail economy and plummeting music sales.” General manager Stephen Wallace-Haines says: “In the end, all the roads towards reorganization led to this dead end: we did not have the money required to pay for product in advance, to collect reserves to buy for Christmas, and […]
Fey Proposal
The NY Post says that a “sounding out” of interest in a book by Tina Fey by Richard Abate at Endeavor has elicited offers of over $5 million. There is no proposal, and Fey has not met with publishers.Post
Who Won't Win the Nobel? An American
Permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy Horace Engdahl has tipped his hand when it comes to considering an American for the Nobel prize for literature. He told the AP in an interview, “Of course there is powerful literature in all big cultures, but you can’t get away from the fact that Europe still is the center of the literary world … not the United States.” Our writers are ”too sensitive to trends in their own mass culture.” He added, ”The U.S. is too isolated, too insular. They don’t translate enough and don’t really participate in the big dialogue of literature.” […]
People and More
At Harper Children’s, Kelly Smith has been hired as senior editor, reporting to Phoebe Yeh. She was an acquisitions editor for Sterling. Additionally, Laura Arnold and Greg Ferguson have been promoted to editor, reporting to Barbara Lalicki. Fran Olson moves over to become children’s books national accounts representative for Books-A-Million, Ingram and Bookazine. Olson has been at Harper since 1986. The New York Center for Independent Publishing (NYCIP) will honor Esther Margolis, founder of Newmarket Press, with the Poor Richard Award, given “to a publisher who has made an outstanding contribution to the field of independent publishing> Megan O’Patry has […]
Libel Tourism Bill Clears House
The House of Representatives did action on something recently, passing a libel tourism protection bill on Saturday. Like the orphan works legislation that gained Senate approval on Friday, it’s now a question of whether it can pass the Senate before Congress adjourns. While unlikely, the NYT editorial board is hopeful: “The House of Representatives has passed a good bill that would prevent American courts from enforcing libel judgments obtained in foreign countries if those countries provide less free speech protection than the United States does. The Senate should pass a companion bill before it recesses, and the president should sign […]
Avery Put with Gotham Under Shinker
The Penguin Group is putting Gotham Books and Avery Books together under the direction of Bill Shinker, who will be president and publisher of both lines. Penguin Group president Susan Petersen Kennedy says that “his wise approach to nonfiction publishing will serve to further grow Avery’s widely respected list and will provide the perfect vision for the future growth of these two well-established imprints.” The two imprints will share the same marketing and publicity staff. Shinker notes in the announcement that “these two nonfiction imprints complement each other and are excellent fits.” As a result, Lisa Johnson will be vp, […]