The PW Morning Report, April 25, 2008

By Dermot McEvoy -- Publishers Weekly, 4/25/2008 5:34:00 AM

Friday, April 25, 2008

A daily round-up of the latest publishing news: Penguin Profits; Ripplewood’s Interest; Lexicon Delayed; Scanning the Bible; Hobbit to Big Screen; Unbundled Textbooks; Rowling Envy; U.K. Uproar at HC; Anne Enright Tops Irish Book Awards; Scalia Defends Bush v Gore; Robert O. Collins Dead; and Matthew Thornton Looks at U.S. Trade

Penguin Off to Fast 2008 Start, reports The Bookseller
Expects to achieve double-digit profit margins

U.S. Firm Ripplewood Interested in Buying Bookspan, Columbia House DVD Club, reports Forbes
Bertelsmann A.G. is looking to unload both entities by summer for a reported 250 million euros

Methuen to Delay Publication of The Harry Potter Lexicon, reports The Bookseller
U.S. court case causes havoc with U.K. publisher’s publication schedule

Scanning the Bible for Google
AP reports on the tedious process of scanning books to turn them into digital versions

Guillermo del Toro To Direct The Hobbit and Sequel for New Line Cinema, reports Variety
The plan is to turn J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic into two live-action films

New York Times Editorial Looks at "Unbundled" College Textbooks
The cost of textbooks is skyrocketing on the college level and unbundling is a first step in finding a solution

Rowling Envy? Bloomsbury Authors Feeling Neglected, reports Telegraph.co.uk
Harry Potter’s "mom" is getting all the attention at Bloomsbury U.K. and the other authors don’t like it one bit. There!

U.K. Publishers Revolt Against HarperCollins U.S. Over Digital Rights, reports The Bookseller
Harper’s intent to retain digital rights causes uproar among British publishers

Anne Enright Tops Irish Book Awards, reports The Bookseller
Secures Irish Novel of the Year award for The Gathering at the Irish Book Awards

Scalia Defends Bush v Gore Ruling, reports Reuters
Plugging his book Making Your Case on 60 Minutes this Sunday, he backs putting Bush in the White House

Robert O. Collins Dead, reports Los Angeles Times
UC scholar wrote Alms for Jihad, which was withdrawn by Cambridge in Britain because of a lawsuit

Matthew Thornton Looks at U.S. Trade in PN Online
PW’s "Deals" columnist looks at the way American publishers view works in translation