TODAY'S NEWS

Balzer and Bray to Launch New Children’s Imprint at HC
By Rachel Deahl
Hyperion has lost two more execs to HarperCollins. After last week’s big news that Hyperion adult group founder Bob Miller was defecting to launch a new imprint at HC, Donna Bray and Alessandra Balzer, editorial director and executive editor at Hyperion Books for Children, respectively, have been lured away by Harper as well. The two, who have worked together for 12 years, will start their own eponymous imprint at HarperCollins, called Balzer & Bray, beginning in May. Read on »

New York Passes Net Tax Provision
by Jim Milliot
As part of its new budget, the New York State legislature yesterday approved the Internet Sales Tax provision, a move that will force out-of-state online e-tailers to collect sales tax on purchases made by New York residents. The measure has been long backed by the American Booksellers Association who organized an extensive lobbying campaign in support of passage of the provision. The ABA contends that implementation of the measure will level the playing field between traditional stores and e-tailers in forcing them to charge sales tax the same way bricks-and-mortar stores do. “From the beginning, all we have asked for is an even playing field so that all retailers get the same treatment from New York,” said ABA COO Oren Teicher. “This has never been a case of enacting a new tax; rather we have simply called for the equitable enforcement of existing tax law.” Read on »

'Misha' Publisher Files to Overturn $33 Million Judgment
by Judith Rosen
In the wake of Misha Defonseca’s public acknowledgement last month in Belgium’s Le Soir newspaper that Misha: A Memoir of the Holocaust (1997), also known as Surviving With Wolves, is not true, the book’s original publisher Jane Daniel and her one-person Mt. Ivy Press in Gloucester, Mass., are seeking to overturn a 2001 $11 million judgment, (later tripled to $33 million) on the basis that the book is a hoax. Read on »

AbeBooks Buys Online Store Company
AbeBooks has acquired Chrislands, a Burke, Vir.-based business that builds, hosts and maintains online bookstores. The company specializes in building e-commerce store fronts for both bricks-and-mortar stores as well as individual booksellers. It currently hosts more than 1,000 stores, and the majority of Chrislands’s clients are used booksellers in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia.

The company will remain in Virginia under the direction of cofounders Lance Christen and Jaymes Sorbel. The purchase will give Chrislands clients access to various AbeBooks services, including adding their inventory to BookFinder, AbeBooks’s book price comparison search engine.

The PW Morning Report
By Dermot McEvoy
The Late, Great Norman Mailer; and Rowling and McEwan Win Galaxys Read on »

Blogs

AUTHORS ON THE AIR

Authors on the Air: Mama Rock's Rules; Germaine Greer; Chelsea Handler
This morning, both Today and The View hosted educator and broadcaster Rose Rock, who laid down Mama Rock's Rules: Ten Lessons for Raising a Houseful of Successful Children (Collins, $22.95). Her son, comedian Chris Rock, provides an introduction to the book. Read on »

PICTURE OF THE DAY

Russo's 'Healing Touch'
Richard Russo and five contributors to A Healing Touch: True Stories of Life, Death, and Hospice (Down East Books, Apr.) gather at the Hospice Volunteers of the Waterville Area facility in Waterville, Maine, which will be the recipient of the authors' royalties and a portion of Down East’s proceeds. In recognition of the book and the work of other hospice volunteers, Maine Governor John Baldacci issued a proclamation naming April, 2008, Hospice Volunteer Recognition Month. From l to r: (front row) Richard Russo, Monica Wood, Susan Sterling, Gerry Boyle and (back row) Bill Roorbach and Wesley McNair. Photo by Rosemary Herbert. Submit your pictures here »

JOB OF THE DAY

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