In the UK, longtime head of Random UK’s Century Mark Booth has resigned after 21 years at the imprint. He says in the announcement, “I’ve had a wonderfully happy twenty one years, but I think I’ve done as much as a chap can do. I pride myself on being a bit unpredictable and I hope that the plans I am going to reveal shortly will raise a few eyebrows.” Susan Sandon adds “Mark understandably has not yet revealed all of his immediate plans but writing, journalism and other publishing projects will no doubt form part of his portfolio.” Arrow publishing […]
The Galassi Interview
The latest in Jofie Ferrari-Adler’s series of interviews for Poets & Writers is with Farrar, Straus president and publisher Jonathan Galassi, “who got where he is, in part, by being one of the most gentlemanly editors in the business.” Among the things he learned while working at Random House (from 1981 to 1986): “I learned some other lessons that were not so nice. It wasn’t a collegial place. People really didn’t wish each other well, which I wasn’t used to. But looking back on it I think it was a difficult situation that I could have responded to differently. I […]
A Day without Amazon News Means We Need to Talk About Google Instead
Google Book Search rolled out a variety of refinements and additions yesterday, including a years-late-in-the-making answer to the abundance of book widgets. Finally, anyone can grab copy-and-paste code to embed previews of publishing “partner” books and full views of public domain books on a blog or website.Google blog Also, the Copyright Clearance Center has posted both audio and a full transcript of their interview earlier this week with Michael Healy about the preparatory work he is doing in connection with the established of the Book Rights Registry. An admitted “something of a standards geek,” Healy says, “when you look at […]
Awards
Italian author Claudio Magris, best-known for DANUBE and MICROCOSMS, has been given the annual Frankfurt Booksellers Peace Prize. The AP notes he is “often considered a contender for the Nobel prize in literature. AP In Australia, Tim Winton has won the country’s top fiction prize, the Miles Franklin Award, for the fourth time, for his novel BREATH.
Economy and Currency Pull Down Wiley Results
Sales fell 6.7 percent at Wiley in their fourth quarter, at $403 million and earnings per share decline 14.3 percent, with “continued softness in professional/trade and a decline in higher education.” The company says results rose on a currency-neutral basis. For the coming year, the company says “we anticipate revenue growth on a currency neutral basis” but “top-line results will be highly dependent on economic conditions around the world.” For the full fiscal year, revenue fell 3.7 percent to $1.6 billion reflecting a $120 million negative effect from foreign exchange (principally the declining British pound), and earnings per share declined […]
Simon & Schuster Announces Teen Social Network Site; Tor to Sell Books Online from Multiple Publishers
Building social networks around college textbooks has already showed promising results, and now Simon & Schuster had developed a book-focused social networking site for teens aged 14 to 18 called Pulse It. Site members can read one book a month online for free. S&S says books “will be a combination of titles that have just been released or are soon-to-be published.” Participants earn points for reviews and other posts and site actions, and can win free books and other prizes. Simon & Schuster says the site was a natural outgrowth of their Pulse It Advisory Board, which provided 3,000 teens […]