A year after scrapping a 500-page followup, Elizabeth Gilbert went back to the drawing board and in January Viking will publish Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace With Marriage, a memoir of the “tumultuous year” that came after the mega-success of Eat, Pray, Love (with 4 million copies sold as per Bookscan’s report) and “meditation on wedlock” to her Brazilian-Australian husband. Viking has announced a first printing of 1 million copies, but the NYT helpfully points out that while “such numbers are known to be widely exaggerated, they indicate the publisher’s ambitions.”NYT
Former Viking Editor Ray Roberts, 71, Dies
Ray Roberts died after a short illness on Wednesday, August 12, in New York. He was 71. Roberts began his long career in publishing at the University of Chicago Press, and was an editor at Macmillan, Doubleday, Little Brown, Henry Holt and most recently at Viking, from which he retired in 2005. His many distinguished authors include Ansel Adams, David Attenborough, John Fowles, Martha Grimes, Greg Mortenson, Frances Partridge, and Thomas Pynchon.
Amazon Guarantees Release Day Delivery of THE LOST SYMBOL for hardcover, Kindle
Clearing up what few questions remained about how Amazon would approach the September 15 release day of Dan Brown’s THE LOST SYMBOL, the retailer announced this morning that the book would be available for “guaranteed delivery” via UPS (for the hardcover edition) and via wireless (for the Kindle edition.) The hardcover will be priced at $16.17, while the Kindle edition will bear the $9.99 pricetag.Release
Further Opposition to the Google Books Settlement
As the September 4 date for authors deciding whether to opt in or opt out of the Google Books Settlement, more opposition is being voiced. Scott E. Gant, an author and partner at Boies Schiller & Flexner, a prominent Washington law firm, has launched what the NYT deems “a sweeping opposition” to the Google Books Settlement. “This is a predominantly commercial transaction and one that should be undertaken through the normal commercial process, which is negotiation and informed consent,” Gant told the paper. “Google and its partners are “trying to ram this through so that millions of copyright holders will […]
Google to Partner with France's National Library
Even as opposition swirls, Google Books continues to make deals with national libraries, the most recent being the Bibliothque Nationale de France (BNF) after a four-year battle. BNF director of collections Denis Bruckman described the decision to La Tribune as “purely financial”, as France provided only ¬5 million a year for digitising books for Gallica, the national digital library, yet the national library needed up to â¬80 million (£68 million) just for its works from 1870 to 1940. “We will not stop our own digitising programme, but if Google can enable us to go faster and farther, then why not?”Times […]
B&N Shutters Quamut
Barnes & Noble has closed down its how-to site Quamut, designed to provide simple instructional pieces on a variety of subjects using a mix of user-produced wikis and professionally produced guides. Despite the change (and the message that greets those who try to access the Quamut.com site), B&N continues to run in-house ads for the site on its online store.CNET