Atlanta’s A Cappella Books is planning a midnight opening event for the release of Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice. In London, independent bookseller Crockatt and Powell is closing their South London store, after shuttering their Fulham Road branch in June. Stretching to try that second branch is what weakened the operation, co-owner Matthew Crockatt tells the Bookseller: “We made a commercial decision that didn’t turn out to be a good one.” And in electronic bookselling, Sony has announced that they now have over 1 million public domain titles available on their Reader.
Judge Rules Will of Jack Kerouac's Mother, Controlling His Estate, Was Forged
A Florida judge has ruled that the will of Gabrielle Kerouac, the mother of the late author who inherited his estate in 1969, was a forgery, citing testimony from handwriting experts and doctors. Gabrielle had passed the literary estate to Kerouac’s third wife, Stella, now also deceased, who gave everything to her siblings in 1990. The suit was brought by the author’s reportedly impoverished nephew Paul Blake Jr., who took over the original action filed by Kerouac’s estranged (and now also deceased) daughter Jan in 1994. It’s not clear whether the new court ruling will bring Blake a share of […]
The Most Marketplace: Pages, Links and More
Perhaps one of the biggest “problems” with PublishersMarketplace is that there is too much good stuff crammed in there and people often don’t know how to make the most of it. So we’re going to try a running series of short features/suggestions in case it’s helpful. Long before social networks took off, PM has always provided members the option of an easy-to-post web page (or blog) on our site, forming a community of publishing-focused pages that attracts over 200,000 page views a month. With little or no prompting from us, over 1,500 members have posted pages so far. (The page-posting […]
Bookselling: Free BN Wi-fi; Google Previews at Diesel; Ulin on Amazon; Blogging Reps Interviewed
Years late to the party but still interesting, Barnes & Noble announced this morning that they will provide free in-store wi-fi. (The bookselling chain has provided paid wi-fi service from AT&T ever since that company took over Wayport. AT&T continues as their provider–and is also the provider selected by Plastic Logic for their ereader.) Clearly one part of the strategy is to help promote their new ebookstore and link the physical stores to sales of ebooks: “All customers shopping in Barnes & Noble stores can now freely download and preview any of the over 700,000 eBook titles with hundreds of […]
People, Booker Longlist and More
Jill Santopolo will join Penguin Children’s Philomel as executive editor in mid-August, reporting to Philomel president and publisher Michael Green. She was formerly senior editor at Balzer & Bray imprint. The Booker Prize Longlist was announced this morning, and Sarah Hall’s How to Paint a Dead Man is the only hope for independent publishers (with Random UK taking 5 slots). Coetzee is a two-time Booker winner; Byatt has won once. The Children’s Book, AS Byatt (Chatto and Windus)Summertime, JM Coetzee (Harvill Secker)The Quickening Maze, Adam Foulds (Jonathan Cape)How to paint a dead man, Sarah Hall (Faber)The Wilderness, Samantha Harvey (Jonathan […]
Lunch Weekly for Monday, July 27
Deal Reports Just e-mail to deals@PublishersMarketplace if you aren’t using the online form linked below. Report a deal using the online form The Key As usual, the handy key to our Lunch deal categories. While all reports are always welcome, those that include a category will generally receive a higher listing when it comes time to put them all together. “nice deal” $1 – $49,000 “very nice deal” $50,000 – $99,000 “good deal” $100,000 – $250,000 “significant deal” $251,000 – $499,000 “major deal” $500,000 and up FICTION Debut Chris Greenhalgh’s COCO CHANEL & IGOR STRAVINSKY, a first novel and […]