* At Jossey-Bass, Karen Murphy has been promoted to senior editor for the business trade group. At Other Press, Megan Feulner has been promoted to associate publicist. Gregory Cowles has been promoted to preview editor at the New York Times Book Review. He’s been at TBR since 2004. New Regency “continues to expand and enhance its motion picture division” with new hires that include Michelle Kroes as director of feature and literary development. She will “focus on mining the literary community for film projects as well as acting as the contact for east coast talent.” Kroes has been a scout […]
Current Events Books that Don't Stay Current
This WSJ article must have been pretty easy to compile, spinning off of book titles that didn’t stay relevant for long, such as: Why the Real Estate Boom Will Not Bust — And How You Can Profit From ItSpoiling for a Fight: The Rise of Eliot SpitzerThe Fred Factor: How Fred Thompson May Change the Face of the ’08 Campaign Of course I bet we could come up with far more discredited article titles from the past couple years of the Journal…. One interesting stat: “Nonfiction sales in the U.S. have risen steadily to 311 million books in 2007 from […]
How Much Will Reed Pay You to Buy Their Magazines?
Reports continue to indicate that Reed has had to put together a financing package to cover most of the purchase price of the Reed Business Information unit in order to get someone to “buy” it. (In this case, “buy” likely means agree to make a small down payment and take the big debt package Reed is offering, with the properties as collateral.) They have had to supplement a $1.26 billion package of staple financing from a coalition of banks with another $330 million in loans from their own balance sheet in vendor financing. Which probably means that, while bids were […]
Trade Drops as Wiley Continues to Grow
Wiley reported sales of $402 million for the first quarter of fiscal year 2009, up three percent. Adjusted net income of $30.2 million benefited from lower debt financing costs on the big Blackwell’s acquisition and a $4.6 million insurance settlement. CEO William Pesce notes in the release that the year “began as expected. Scientific, Technical, Medical, and Scholarly and Higher Education reported year-on-year growth, while Professional/Trade was down from last year’s strong first quarter.” The professional/trade line had $102 million in sales, down three percent from a year ago, as contribution to profit fell 24 percent to $19.5 million. “A […]
Booker Shortlist Announced
What a “shock.” As usual, manufactured “surprise” is the fuel of the Booker publicity machine, as the “longlist” turns out to be a head fake for the real shortlist; Salman Rushdie and John Berger did not make the final cut nor did Tom Rob Smith’s Child 44, which served its purpose just by being held up as a possible nominee. Also left aside were the overrated Netherland by Joseph O’Neill and books by Gaynor Arnold; Michelle de Kretser; and Mohammed Hanif. That leaves your finalists of: Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger (Atlantic) Sebastian Barry, The Secret Scripture (Faber and Faber) […]
Rowling Wins over RDR, but Judge's Ruling Is Mixed
Judge Robert Patterson agreed that author JK Rowling would face irreparable harm from RDR Books’ proposed publication of the HARRY POTTER LEXICON and ruled in her favor in the copyright infringement suit brought by Rowling and Warner Bros. Patterson said the publisher “had failed to establish an affirmative defense of fair use” and issued a permanent injunction against publication–but since the book had not been issued yet, he awarded minimum statutory damages of $6,750. In the full opinion, Patterson walks a fine line through the nuanced arguments made in the case. He acknowledges that “reference works that share the Lexicon’s […]