Rich Freese will take over from Jed Lyons as president of NBN as of July 6, working out of Oakland, CA. Lyons will “focus on the book publishing activities of NBN’s parent company, The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group.” (The release says NBN had sales of $100 million, and R&L had sales of $60 million.) Most recently Freese had launched a new distribution enterprise for BookMasters, though he worked at NBN in the late 90s and through 2002. Lyons says in the announcement “Rich Freese is the most knowledgeable, thoughtful, and creative person I know in the book distribution business.” […]
Bloomsbury Calls Allegations "Unfounded, Unsubstantiated and Untrue"
Bloomsbury responds to the lawsuit filed by the estate of Adrian Jacobs saying that “JK Rowling had never heard of Adrian Jacobs nor seen, read or heard of his book Willy the Wizard until this claim was first made in 2004…. Willy the Wizard is a very insubstantial booklet running to 36 pages which had very limited distribution. The central character of Willy the Wizard is not a young wizard and the book does not revolve around a wizard school.” When first asserted in 2004, “the claim was unable to identify any text in the Harry Potter books which was […]
The Things Bezos Can Get Press for: He Wants Rival Google's Settlement Agreement "Revisited"
At a Wired conference in New York, Jeff Bezos stated the obvious, “we have strong opinions” about the proposed Google Book Search settlement, “which I’m not going to share.” Having admitted that he would not say anything of substance on his company’s concerns about of the biggest possible rivals in electronic reading, he offered a gee whiz reflection on the class action legal system at work instead: “It doesn’t seem right that you should do something — kind of get a prize for violating a large series of copyrights. You just can’t believe that’s the way it actually works.”WSJ blog
Lunch Weekly for Monday, June 15
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 Matt Burgess’s DOGFIGHT, about the tribulations of an ambivalent drug-dealer in […]
Estate of Willy the Wizard Author Sues Bloomsbury, Claims Potter Infringes, and More Legal News
The estate of children’s book author Adrian Jacobs has sued Bloomsbury in England’s High Court, alleging that JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire “copied substantial parts” of Jacobs’ THE ADVENTURES OF WILLY THE WIZARD–No 1 Livid Land. The estate “is also seeking a Court order against JK Rowling herself for pre-action disclosure in order to determine whether to join her as a defendant to the…action.” They also allege that when Jacobs was first seeking representation, he submitted to Rowling’s agent Christopher Little. Apparently both books feature wizards who compete in contests and have to rescue humans. While […]
People
Random House UK ceo Gail Rebuck was made a Dame on the Queen’s Birthday Honors List (her husband is already a Lord). In annual income disclosures, Senator Ted Kennedy reported that he was paid $2 million as an advance (presumably only the first part) for his memoir in 2008. (The full price was reportedly about $8 million.) This week’s New Yorker profiles Nora Roberts, “America’s most popular novelist”–whom the magazine explains to its readers is like “the Raymond Carver of romance,” at least in her “choice of milieu.” (They note that the Times Book Review has reviewed just one of […]