* So it has come to this. The owners of branded children’s characters are delighted to sell plates, napkins, decorations, favors and more for birthday parties, but don’t think you can have someone dressed up as that character attend the party. The WSJ reports: “In recent years, corporations that own the rights to some of the more popular characters, companies that include Marvel, Scholastic and HIT Entertainment, have sent cease-and-desist letters, threatened lawsuits and in some cases received settlements from companies that market unauthorized character impersonators. The threats rattle the costume industry.” At least Scholastic does provide costume rentals for […]
Another Book Review Editor Gone
As part of the combination of buyouts and layoffs cutting deeply at the Tribune Company’s Hartford Courant (where they intend to eliminate 25 percent of editorial pages), books editor since 2002 Carole Goldberg is leaving the paper.
Today's Book Deal Highlights: Ron Paul, Tori Spelling, and More
The new reports on the PublishersMarketplace deals page include: Ron Paul’s memoir of his thirty-year career in politics; Tori Spelling’s MOMMYWOOD; screenwriter Dianne Dixon’s debut novel, LIMA STREET; and Andrea Mays’ THE MAN WHO SAVED SHAKESPEARE.New Deals page
At CBA Show, Zondervan Introduces Download-by-Card
The Tamba Bay newspaper covers the CBA’s International Christian Retail Show in Orlando, with approximately 7,000 attendees (and no exhibit from Thomas Nelson). Non-book merchandise captures the paper’s attention more than books, including everything from “a Christian version of the wildly popular Guitar Hero video game to ‘witness wear’ clothing and skateboard art that proclaim faith in bold cultural statements.” With Nelson’s absence, the show appears to be in serious decline, with numbers well below the approximately 9,250 attendees recorded the two previous years. (Even that number is well below the show’s high-water-mark of almost 15,000 attendees from 1999.) Publisher […]
Knopf's Discreet Roman a Clef
Kathryn Walker’s forthcoming debut novel A STOPOVER IN VENICE, “about a young woman who leaves her husband, a famous musician, and their unhappy marriage for an adventure in Venice” features characters with similarities to her ex-husband James Taylor–along with Carly Simon, Jason Robards (an old friend of the author) and co-founder of the National Lampoon Douglas Kenney (the author’s boyfriend at one point). But none of this connections are even hinted at in the author’s bio or the presentation of the book, as the NYT notes. “So why isn’t Knopf doing some name-dropping to give the book a promotional boost? […]
Consternation in UK Over Asda's HP Paperback Discount
Sales of the paperback release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in the UK were dominated by Asda after they decided to sell the book for just one pound for the first three days. Asda book buyer Steph Bateson says they sold just under 40,000 copies during the promotion, while Nielsen Bookscan tracked sales industrywide of 46,257 copies in that three-day period. Despite the money lost by the chain on the promotion, Bateson tells the Bookseller “I think we have shaken the other retailers up a bit, which was always our intention,” calling it a “genuine footfall and sales-driving […]