Robert Downey Jr. can’t handle the truth written on paper–or at least he prefers not do so at 2006 prices now that Iron Man was hit. The AP reports that the actor has returned his advance to Harper after having signed to provide a “candid look at the highs and lows of his life and career.” The wire notes that spokeseperson Britney Ross of Rogers & Cowan “declined to say why Downey wouldn’t be writing the book.”AP
Google Book Search, en Francais
Google has now officially confirmed the enrollment of the the Municipal Library of Lyon as the first French institution to join the Google Book Search Library Project. Together they will digitize “close to 500,000 public domain books.” You may recall that in the early days of GBS there were two primary schools of griping: the we’re going to be included and we don’t want to be branch, and the we’re not going to be included (and horrible English works will smother the world) branch. Needless to say, the French were among the leaders of the latter camp, advocating for government-backed […]
Candidates as Comics?
IDW Publishing has announced they will issue two comic-book biographies of the major presidential candidates in early October, along with a trade paperback “flip-book” with both comics in one edition.
Personnel News
In the publicity department at William Morrow: Jack Womack has been promoted to associate director; and Brianne Halverson and Jennifer Slattery have been promoted to senior publicity manager. CQ Press has hired Ronald Parisi as national sales manager for the reference information group, servicing schools, libraries, and businesses. He was national sales manager, medical markets at ProQuest.
More Names from the LAT
Ed Champion confirms that Kris Lindgren is the other member of the Los Angeles Times Book Review team being laid off: “Her last day is Friday. This is a terrible loss for the books section. I worked with Kris on a few reviews, and she was a fantastic editor, often forcing me to come up with some taut sentences in a very small window of time.”Blog post
WSJ on ThrillerFest
The WSJ covers the recent ThrillerFest in New York: “Six hundred thriller writers, fans and industry professionals, some from as far away as Britain, Australia and New Zealand, were on hand…, a 30% increase from last year, according to Kathleen Antrim, author of ‘Capital Offense,’ [and vp of the organization] the saga of a first lady plotting to overthrow the president. ThrillerFest 2007 netted multibook deals for two attendees, and while it would be premature to speculate about the contracts that may come out of this gathering, ‘at least 25 people came up to me to say that agents had […]