Hachette Book Group has filled the open chief operating officer slot with the hiring of Kenneth Michaels, who joins the company on January 5. He was most recently svp of global business process management for the McGraw-Hill Companies. CEO David Young notes, “he consistently achieved impressive results across many areas of the business including IT infrastructure and strategy, new business development, distribution initiatives, operations, inventory, and leadership development.” He will “focus on finding opportunities for greater efficiency throughout the areas of our business that will report to him: distribution, facilities, fulfillment, IT, managing editorial, production, and strategic publishing operations.” Harper […]
Obama Book Club Selects: Tom Daschle
He’s the likely nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the latest Obama-backed author to crack the top 20 online, at No. 17 on Amazon’s list morning. (In this case, Senator Obama had already recommended the book, with his endorsement featured on the cover.)
Amazon Honors 3 Distributors
Apparently Amazon recognizes distributors of the year, and this year they are honoring Macmillan, Random House Publisher Service, and IPG. Criteria include “the shortest and most consistent receive lead times” for books, “actively growing” Kindle availability, using Amazon’s print-on-demand, providing correct ONIX data, and strong search inside the book participation. Amazon books vp Russell Grandinetti says in the announcement, “By working together, we’re able to improve the rate at which their books are in stock on Amazon, lower prices through lowering operational costs and help customers find, discover and buy great books…. We’re proud to work with such great distributors […]
SSE Book Draws Two Lawsuits
Author Jay Louis and publisher Simon Spotlight Entertainment are facing two recently-filed lawsuits over the book HOT CHICKS WITH DOUCHEBAGS. Three New Jersey women filed suit last month, charging “commercial exploitation” of their likenesses without consent and invasion of privacy by depicting them as “dubious females who hate men.” The complaint notes, “this belief and/or depictation [sic] is not open for public observation, but is rather a private matter.” Last Friday, club promoter Michael Minnelli filed suit in Las Vegas, charging that his depiction in the book is “derogatory, offensive, and otherwise defamatory.” The plaintiff says he has been “the […]
Europe Launches Digital Library
The European Commission has launched their Europeana project, meant to provide a collection of digitized cultural resources from across Europe. But the NYT notes that “more than half of its two million items will come from just one of the 27 countries in the European Union: France…. Only 1 percent of the content has information about Germany, 1.4 percent about Spain and only 10 percent about Britain.” The site draws on the archives of over 1,000 museums, libraries and archives, presenting books, paintings, maps, videos, and newspapers, all free of copyright restrictions. The EU’s goal is to present 10 million […]
More on Nabokov's LAURA
Dmitri Nabokov “has finally broken his silence about the contents” of the late Vladimir Nabokov’s unfinished THE ORIGINAL OF LAURA, which is set for publication rather than the burning originally called for by the author. And he shows the index cards on which it has written–which have been stored in a Swiss bank vault–to the BBC’s cameras. He told the BBC, “My father told me what his most important books were. He named Laura as one of them. One doesn’t name a book one intends to destroy. He would have reacted in a sober and less dramatic way if he […]