A report due out this week from research conducted by HarperCollins, the Trade Publishers Council and the National Year of Reading (NYR) says the book trade is “too intimidating” towards the C2DE socio-economic group, characterized as lower income, non-professional families. The report found that many families in this group, numbering up to 20 million, found books to be “alien and unattractive” while reading was considered “an anti-social activity for people who don’t know how to live.” NYR project director Honor Wilson-Fletcher said: “These are good solid families who don’t have literacy problems but who just don’t read. They are one […]
FiledByAuthor Launches Public Beta
After spending a number of months in private pre-beta, FiledByAuthor has moved into public beta format. The site, which aims to be “the first large-scale author-centric promotional platform to provide every author that has been published in the U.S. or Canada a free, hosted, ecommerce enabled web page,” has more than 1.8 million pre-assembled author web pages and over 7 million book titles. “All authors, regardless of publishing category are encouraged to visit the site, claim their page, make corrections, and enrich them in a variety of ways,” said Founder, President & C.E.O. Peter Clifton in the accompanying release. FiledByAuthor
People and Announcements
Stacia Decker and Danielle Chiotti have joined Firebrand Literary as agents. Decker was previously an editor at Harcourt; Chiotti was formerly a senior editor at Kensington. Faber & Faber have appointed Mary Cannam and Jason Cooper have been appointed to the executive board At Crown, Courtney Greenhalgh has been promoted to Publicity Manager and Emily Lavelle has been promoted to Associate Publicist. Houston Chronicle books editor Fritz Lanham was among those laid off from the newspaper earlier this week. Marcus Lutrell and Dexter Filkins have both won the 2009 Colby Award, recognizing a first work of fiction or non-fiction “that […]
Weak Dollar Pushes Random House Results Further Down
Bertelsmann reported annual results this morning in Germany, with sales at Random House falling 6.3 percent for the year, to 1.721 billion euros, as EBIT fell even more, down 21 percent at 137 million euros. (After the first six months of the year, Random had been down almost 8 percent in sales and nearly 30 percent in EBIT.) The company says the drops are “primarily due to negative exchange rate effects,” insisting that “adjusted for these and for acquisitions, revenues remained stable.” But those sales are the lowest recorded in the past seven years (during which the company has made […]
BEA Editors Buzz Forum Choices, Plus New YA Session
BEA’s Editors Buzz Forum will return to its traditional Thursday time slot, and adds a Young Adult Buzz Forum on Friday, May 29 “to address the growing interest in young adult books.” Along with announcing this year’s selection, convention officials note that criteria for buzz book consideration has now been formalized for future years: All nominated books must have a fall release timeline (September – January). All submissions must have a digital packet which includes jacket art, first chapter, imprint logo, author photo and SMPR (social media press release). BEA will create a “Books with Buzz” tab on its web […]
Searching Inside HarperCollins' Digital Catalog
HarperCollins has been promising for a while that it would make its seasonal catalogs an all-digital affair, and as of yesterday, starting with Fall 2009, they’ve taken that step with a beta version that features book jackets and covers, prices, on-sale dates, marketing information, reviews, sample spreads, quotes, important media alerts and additional media content. The aim is for a “significantly more dynamic experience” than the traditional print catalog, also making available select galleys and AREs for browsing. “We are providing an improved tool that will always contain current information and one that will save time and resources for publishers, […]