The lawsuit brought by HarperCollins and the Tolkien estate against New Line Cinema seeking unpaid royalties from the Lord of the Rings films, alleging breach of contract and fraud, has been scheduled for trial in Los Angeles in October 2009. LA Superior Court Judge Ann Jones found that there is a legal basis for the fraud claim, though she disallowed any claim of punitive damages. (The suit asks for over $150 in compensatory damages.) The suit also asks the court to terminate New Line’s rights to make movies based on the Hobbit–ironically slated to be directed by just-announced HarperCollins author […]
Editorial Skills for Digital Days
Pan Macmillan’s Nicholas Blake posts a presentation made at the Society of Young Publishers this week on the company’s Digitalist blog about, in which he looked at the role of the editor in a world adapting to digital processes and markets. “I argued that although editors in our part of the archipelago needed new knowledge and understanding, as they always have, they didn’t need new skills, and I outlined ten key islands of knowledge, five collaborative and five individual.” Those islands: 1. Get the rights. Penguin got 700 titles up for the Waterstone’s launch – then had to take 120 down […]
Maybe We Can't Review You Is the Wrong Answer
Following the Washington Post’s blog post about a few “worthy” books they didn’t have space to review, the St. Louis Post Dispatch has a much longer explanation of why the paper will never do what readers ask for. “We don’t review every local author’s book. We can’t – we don’t have the space, time or freelance budget. Plus, there are more books published now than ever before…. But we no longer have an Everyday section, where we also used to run feature stories about local and national authors and even book reviews. This is disappointing to everyone.” They have policies, […]
Scholastic's Potterless Quarter
Scholastic reported first quarter sales of $285 million with a net loss from continuing operations of $44.7 million. Last year’s quarter had an additional $245 million, all but $5 million of that from Harry Potter, and recorded a gain of $3.3 million, unusual for the quarter, in which Scholastic usually has a seasonal loss with school not in session. CEO Dick Robinson says “largely reflecting a challenging market and prior year comparisons, educational technology sales were soft in the first quarter.” The numbers fell below the expectations of analysts’, who were looking for sales of $292 million and a loss […]
Will Buffett Book SNOWBALL?
A little like Warner’s launch of Jack Welch’s first book right after 9/11, Bantam faces uncertainty as their expensive authorized biography of legendary investor Warren Buffett releases next Monday in the midst of what Buffett himself calls an “economic Pearl Harbor.” Will current conditions make readers hungrier than ever for insights into one of the greatest investors ever, or leave them with no appetite for personal details about one of the world’s richest men? Time magazine appears to have had the first official look at the book, which they say “reveals that in his personal life, the Oracle of Omaha […]
Bloomsbury Buys Berg
Bloomsbury has made another addition to its growing academic division with the purchase of Oxford International Publishers Limited, which operates as Berg Publishers, for 1.8 million pounds in cash, 200,000 million pounds in stock, and up to 1 million pounds in deferred compensation based performance. Focused on books and journals for the academic student market in the fields of fashion, design and culture studies, Berg had sales 1.58 million pounds in 2007. Kathryn Earle will continue to run the company.Release