Janson-Smith Will Leave Transworld for Agency World Longtime Transworld publisher since 1981 Patrick Janson-Smith has had a great run, credited with founding the Black Swan imprint and bringing the house such authors as Bill Bryson, John Irving, Andy McNab, Terry Pratchett, and Carl Hiaasen, but now he will leave at the end of September to join the Christopher Little Literary Agency — which has had a great run of its own on the success of client J.K. Rowling. At Transworld, Bill Scott-Kerr (who edits Andy McNab is and credited with bringing Dan Brown and John Twelve Hawks to the house) […]

News Briefs 1. Hyperion executive editor since 1998 Mary Ellen O’Neill will join Collins as vp, publisher of Wellness and Lifestyle. Reporting to O’Neill are executive editors Kathy Huck and Toni Sciarra and editor Greg Chaput. The line publishes approximately 75 titles annually. 2. Per yesterday’s story, this morning Random House estimates that they sold over 425,000 copies of Christopher Paolini’s ELDEST in the first week on sale, a record for the children’s division. Reprints totaling 500,000 copies have been ordered. 3. Last Friday, Page Six reported that Thomas Mesereau, Michael Jackson’s defense attorney, has chosen Esther Newberg at ICM […]

Eldest Moves Past Printing Error In Big Release Last Tuesday’s big 1.3 million-copy laydown of Christopher Paolini’s ELDEST was made more complicated by a printing gaffe in which a portion of copies were missing a signature, inexplicably replaced by a signature from competitor Cornelia Funke’s forthcoming INKSPELL instead. Tomorrow morning Random House will announce their estimate of a robust initial sell-through, along with a big reprint, expected to be well into six figures. Random House Children’s executive director of publicity Judith Haut, on tour with Paolini, says that a signing yesterday at a Bethesda, MD Barnes & Noble lasted for […]

Distribution News With O’Reilly Media set to make their distribution switch to the Ingram Book Group next month, Ingram has announced the signing of four additional clients: the UK’s MQ Publications and Michael O’Mara Books, Michael Viner’s new company Phoenix Books and Audio, and Indian publisher Roli Books. Meanwhile, CDS has announced their first new client capture since being absorbed by the Perseus Book Group. Art book publisher and distributor D.A.P (Distributed Art Publishers) will use for CDS physical distribution and related services starting next month. Conflict at Canadian Broadcaster Complicates Fall Releases A labor lockout at Canada’s CBC Television […]

Eldest’s Turn Today is the release of summer’s second big fantasy novel, Christopher Paolini’s ELDEST, and a number of the nation’s papers take note and offer short author interviews. Originally set for a 1 million copy release, the initial run has been increased to 1.3 million and the book tops the Amazon list this morning. Paolini tells the Seattle Post-Intelligencer the depth of his enterprise struck him only recently when playing an online game: “One of the players was named Eragon. Much to my horror, he was actually pretty good and I found a message flashed across the screen — […]

Keller’s Letter Home NYT executive editor pens a letter to the editor of the newspaper’s Book Review responding to Richard Posner’s lengthy essay from late July about media bias: “Richard A. Posner has a famously prodigious and provocative mind. I always pick up a Posner essay expecting to be challenged by an original argument. So it was disheartening that his review of the latest crop of press-bashing books was mostly a regurgitation, as tendentious and cynical as the worst of the books he consumed.” Keller concludes, “I suppose the best refutation of the view that ‘the media’ are guided solely […]