The newspaper has corrected a January piece “about women who commiserated over dating Wall Street bankers caught in the financial crisis” who claimed they had formed a support group, Dating a Banker Anonymous, with about 30 women participating. It’s just a blog, and a joke at that. If published in a book the Times would call it a hoax; as published in their pages it is “a satire that embellishes true experiences for effect.” The paper blames those featured for not having made “the nature of the blog…clear at the outset.” As Newsweek notes, the women behind the blog have […]
Agent Weisfeld Sues Faber and Author Lowe
Jarred Weisfeld at Objective Entertainment filed suit in a New York state court yesterday against FSG’s Faber imprint and Jamie Lowe, author of DIGGING FOR DIRT: The Life and Death of ODB (aka Ol’ Dirty Bastard, aka the late Russell Jones), alleging “malicious, false, defamatory and anti-semitic statements” and seeking damags of at least $10 million. The complaint says that Weisfeld is depicted “as a money hungry Jewish manager who was financially invested in ODB’s very soul,” and alleges that the basis of that description comes not from an actual press conference but rather from a parody depiction of that […]
Paid Is a Lot More Complicated than You Think–So Is the Truth
Savvy readers will note this headline is lifted from Tim O’Reilly’s wise presentation from a year ago on why “free is more complicated than you think.” There have been a number of interesting posts and discussions online recently about pricing questions, both from the publisher’s perspective (wondering about how to structure successful business models if average ebook prices are significantly lower than print prices and retailers like Amazon no longer subsidize those low prices) and the consumer’s (generally reaffirming that readers believe ebooks are less valuable than print books, come with fewer privileges, and should increasingly cost less). There’s much […]
Vintage Broadens Spanish-Language Publishing
Vintage Español has announced a significant expansion through a co-publishing agreement with their parent company’s co-venture Random House Mondadori. Starting this fall, Vintage will reissue approximately 50 of RH Mondadori’s bestselling backlist titles, including all of the Spanish-language editions of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s work, along with works by such authors as Pablo Neruda, Federico GarcÃa Lorca, Ken Follett, John Grisham, Cormac McCarthy, and Mary Higgins Clark. Vintage will also publish 15 new frontlist titles in Spanish (mostly in paperback) annually as part of the initiative. The program is being directed by Vintage Espanol publishing director Milena Alberti and overseen by […]
Starbucks to Feature Actress's Memoir
Actress Isabel Gillies’s HAPPENS EVERY DAY: An All-Too-True Story, will be the next book featured in 7,000 Starbucks locations across the US. Known for playing Detective Stabler’s wife on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Gillies memoir is about “coming to terms with the collapse of her marriage.’ Starbucks will carry the book as of March 24, Scribner’s publication date. Thus far, after seven titles so far, the “Starbucks effect” remains vague. The coffee chain certainly sells plenty of copies through it own outlets, but that does not always correlate to broader trade sales. Their most successful “discovery” was clearly […]
Lunch Weekly for Monday, February 23
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 Liza Campbell’s MEASURE ME AGAINST THE SKY, in which a young […]