News Briefs

Bestselling author Jon Krakauer's book about Pat Tillman, The Hero, has been indefinitely delayed. Doubleday had planned to release the book this fall and had set a 500,000-copy first printing. Doubleday said Krakauer was unhappy with the manuscript, and that the earliest the book would come out is next year.

After selling more than 25 million copies of his fantasy titles with Tor, Terry Goodkind is moving to Putnam, which acquired U.S. hardcover and paperback rights in a joint venture with Berkley Books. Putnam will publish the novels—which will be mainstream fiction, not fantasy—in hardcover; Berkley will do the paperbacks. The first book will pub in fall 2009 and is described as a contemporary thriller set in an American city.

Lerner Publishing Group has signed a licensing deal with USA Today to create several series of educational books targeted to upper elementary, middle and high school students. The first four titles—on Oprah Winfrey, Vera Wang, Bill Gates and Tiger Woods—will be released this fall under the USA Today Lifeline Biographies banner. Editorial content will include original material as well as photos, USA Today Snapshot graphics and other information from the newspaper's archives. The books will be published by Lerner's Twenty-First Century Books division.

Borders has tapped its YA buyer, Jennifer Northcutt, to oversee fiction at the chain. Northcutt will head fiction buying for all Borders and Waldenbooks stores.

A Portland, Ore., U.S. District Court judge denied a request from ABFFE to issue a preliminary injunction to block enforcement of Oregon's “harmful to minors” law until a trial can be held. ABFFE's Chris Finan said that while the organization was disappointed with the decision, it was glad that the judge set an early trial date—October 3—for the case to begin.