TODAY'S NEWS

Book Industry Environmental Council's Goal: Reduce Emissions by 20%
By Lynn Andriani
The Book Industry Environmental Council announced aggressive goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at a web conference Thursday afternoon. The council’s target: to reduce the U.S. book industry’s greenhouse gas emissions 20% by 2020 (from a 2006 baseline), and to achieve an 80% reduction by 2050.

Green Press Initiative founder and director Tyson Miller called the undertaking “pretty substantial,” but Pete Datos, chair of the Council’s climate subcommittee and a v-p at Hachette Book Group, said it is “meaningful and achievable.” The Council based its goal on a 2008 industry-focused report which concluded that the U.S. book industry has a climate impact equivalent to 12.4 million metric tons of carbon. A 20% reduction would represent a savings of up to 2.5 million metric tons per year, the equivalent annual emissions of approximately 450,000 cars. “Science tells us [a 20% reduction] is necessary to avoid the worst impact,” Datos said, noting that the report’s findings are “in line with a lot of other research and work.” Read on »

Publishing Trade Show Networking Site PubMatch.org Launches
By Lynn Andriani
Sister companies Combined Book Exhibit and The American Collective Stand have launched PubMatch.org, a service that will help facilitate business taking place between book related trade shows, and help exhibitors and attendees make the most of their time at shows. Visitors to the site can create free profiles as publishers, agents, agencies, authors or illustrators; post titles or work samples; and network with other companies or individual people. Read on »

Lightning Source Launches Espresso Book Machine Pilot
Lightning Source has launched an Espresso Book Machine pilot program, done in conjunction with On Demand Books, through which select publishers will be able to offer their customers the opportunity to print their titles on the Espresso machines located throughout the country.

The pilot program expands on Lightning's previously announced partnership with On Demand Books, the company that make the EBM, a device that works like a copier for books, printing and binding them in a few minutes. Read on »

Hyperion Signs Breslin for Blagojevich Book
by Matthew Thornton
Hyperion editor-in-chief Will Balliett has acquired a new book by Jimmy Breslin, to be an account of the Rod Blagojevich scandal; David Black sold North American rights. In the satirical spirit of Breslin’s 1969 The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight (but nonfiction), the book will work backwards to conjure a world of Chicago politics in which being Illinois governor gives one a higher chance of going to jail than does robbing a liquor store, and will feature a cast of characters that “only Jimmy Breslin could have invented,” said Balliett.

Pulitzer Prize-winner Breslin is the author of numerous books, most recently the collection of mob pieces, The Good Rat, published last year by Ecco. Hyperion plans to publish the yet-to-be-titled book in October 2010. The former governor's own account of his experiences is due out from Phoenix Books this fall.

Harlequin Lands Reno Title
As part of its effort to expand its nonfiction presence, Harlequin triumphed in an auction for the next book from Tosca Reno, author of the popular The Eat Clean Diet series. The new, as yet untitled book, will focus on how women 35 and older can achieve the best body of their lives with fitness, health, and beauty and nutrition advice, and will feature a foreword by Bobbi Brown, founder of Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, and one of Tosca’s biggest supporters. Harlequin said the new book will build on the Eat Clean series and take it “a step further to help women conquer various issues that come with aging, including menopause and changing nutritional needs.”

Harlequin editor Sarah Pelz acquire the title from Yfat Reiss Gendell of Foundry Literary +Media. A fall 2010 pub date is planned.

Blogs

MORE STORIES

Lulu Poetry Separate from Former Scam Site
When self-publishing site Lulu announced earlier this week that it had launched a Poetry site at www.Poetry.com, some confusion ensued. That’s because before Lulu bought the domain Poetry.com, it was owned by Watermark Media, which had operated a “contest” on the site that was largely regarded by the online poetry community as a scam. Read on »

Monday's Reviews Today: C.J. Box's Latest & An 'Urban Farmer'
In C.J. Box's ninth novel featuring Joe Pickett, Below Zero, the Wyoming game warden discovers his foster daughter (who met a grisly fate in a previous novel) might still be alive.The book is a "relentlessly paced powder keg of a thriller" that "could be Box’s best to date." In food writer Novella Carpenter's "utterly enchanting" account of turning a patch of dirt in San Francisco into a thriving garden, Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer, we get a memoir with "an Annie Dillard lyricism" that delivers a juxtaposition of "farming life with inner-city grit that elevates it to the realm of the magical." Read on »

Job Moves
Some staff moves within Random House Children's Books this week as Christine Labov, publicity director of the unit, is, after having a baby, stepping down to spend time with her family. With Labov's departure the following promotions went into effect: Noreen Marchisi has been bumped up from publicity manager to director of publicity; Kelly Galvin from senior publicist to publicity manager; Dominique Cimina from associate publicist to senior publicist and online media specialist; Meg O'Brien from associate publicist to publicist and online media specialist; and Casey Lloyd, Emily Pourciau, and Elizabeth Zajac, all publicity assistants, are now associate publicists.

AUTHORS ON THE AIR

Authors on the Air: The Gorgeously Green Diet; Descent into Chaos; A Reliable Wife
Today on Good Morning America, Sophie Uliano served up The Gorgeously Green Diet: How to Live Lean and Green (Dutton, 978-0525951155, $25.95), just out this week. Read on »

PICTURE OF THE DAY

Is There a Doctor in the House?
At a recent event at Kepler’s, in Menlo Park, Calif., author Brian Eule discussed his new book, Match Day: One Day and One Dramatic Year in the Life of Three New Doctors (St. Martin’s Press). Here Kepler's employee Cressida Hansen introduces Eule to the crowd.
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JOB OF THE DAY

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