The PW Morning Report, April 14, 2009
By Dermot McEvoy -- Publishers Weekly, 4/14/2009 6:00:00 AM
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
A daily
round-up of the latest publishing news: Bobby Jindal Inks Book Deal; A Not-So-Dumb Publishing "Experiment"; $igned Book by Obama Worth Big Buck$; Worlds Collide in Death of Sylvia Plath’s Son; John Maddox, Nature Editor, Dead; Moody’s Cuts Ratings on Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; HBO Options Game Change; and Mockingbird Beats Out Bible
Bobby Jindal Inks Book Deal, reports New Orleans Times-Picayune
The Louisiana governor with the Mister Rogers demeanor (and a penchant for exorcism) has signed up with conservative publisher Regnery for a book to be delivered in 2010
A Not-So-Dumb Publishing "Experiment"
The Washington Post is reporting on the publishing history of Dumb Money by Daniel Gross. It just came out in paperback, but originated as an ebook. Post: "everyone involved—author, agent and publisher—saw it as an experiment, the kind of small-scale trial run that a late-adopting industry needs to do a lot more of"
$igned Book by President Obama Worth Big Buck$, reports Huffington Post
Obama is going for $2,000; Reagan $900; Clinton $400. Gingrich and Bill O’Reilly bring up the ugly rear at only $25 bucks each
Worlds Collide in Death of Sylvia Plath’s Son, reports New York Times
Those who knew the poetry of Plath and her husband Ted Hughes view the suicide of their son, Nicholas, one way. To those who knew him in Alaska, "his death there is building resentment, a sense that his life and death are being distorted by strangers, depicted as either the inevitable after-effect of his father’s infidelities or somehow genetically foreordained by his mother’s demons"
John Maddox, Nature Editor, Dead at 83, reports New York Times
Maddox was known for bringing a sense of fun and an appetite for spirited argument to the formerly staid pages of Nature. His books include What Remains to Be Discovered: Mapping the Secrets of the Universe, the Origins of Life, and the Future of the Human Race (1998), The Doomsday Syndrome (1972), and Beyond the Energy Crisis: A Global Perspective (1975)
Moody’s Cuts Ratings on Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, reports Irish Independent
HMH had its $6.4 billion corporate family debt rating slashed in the belief that debt restructuring is required for the company to survive
HBO Options Game Change About 2008 Election, reports Variety
The subtitle of the Mark Halperin/John Heilemann tome tells it all: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime
Mockingbird Beats Out Bible As Most Inspirational, reports Daily Telegraph
In a U.K. survey, Harper Lee's classic is #1. A Child Called It by Dave Pelzer placed third, followed by Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus by John Gray and Diary of Anne Frank
