TODAY'S NEWS

Simon & Schuster Selling e-Chapters
Simon & Schuster has started to sell individual e-chapters to its bestselling YOU series of titles written by Dr. Michael F. Roizen and Dr. Mehmet C. Oz. The initiative was developed as part of a broader effort by Dr. Oz to provide answers about health on his www.askdoctoroz.com Web site. For answers to questions that appear in one of the YOU titles, S&S created an e-commerce widget that will allow consumers to purchase just the chapter in which the answer was found as well as providing the opportunity to buy the complete book in digital, physical and audio formats. Read on »

Dyssegaard Joins Hyperion
Elisabeth Dyssegaard will join Hyperion November 16 as editor-in chief, replacing Will Balliett who left earlier this fall to head Thames and Hudson. Dyssegaard has been executive editor of Smithsonian Books at HarperCollins and held editorial positions at Farrar, Straus & Giroux and Ballantine. While at Smithsonian, Dyssegaard edited a variety of narrative nonfiction and served as a liaison with Smithsonian’s magazines, networks, and membership groups. In making the announcement, Hyperion publisher Ellen Archer cited both Dyssegaard’s editorial and leadership skills. “Given Elisabeth’s history of acquiring terrific fiction and narrative nonfiction, and her ability to collaborate with offsite partners, she’s a perfect fit for Hyperion and our multi-platform publishing program,” Archer said.

U.K. Publishers Look at E-book Interoperability
By Calvin Reid
The Publishers Association, the trade organization for British book publishers, announced plans to partner with Adobe Systems in an effort to discuss and expand the interoperability of e-book formats across the various operating systems and hardware. The Publishers Association also announced preliminary plans to organize a seminar on interoperability to be held in Britain in January 2010. Read on »

Amazon Picks 'Let the Great World Spin' as Best Book of 2009
Amazon has named Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin as its best book of 2009. Published by Random House, Amazon called Spin “a gorgeous and moving story.” Tom Nissley, senior editor of Amazon.com Books, said the selection of McCann’s work, “was the closest we’ve ever come to a unanimous pick across the entire Amazon.com Books team.” The selection of Spin accompanied Amazon’s release of its top 10 books of 2009 as well as best 100 books of the year, broken down into a number of categories. PW released its best 100 adult books and top 30 children's books of 2009 in today’s magazine. Read on »

Rick Riordan’s Next Project, The Kane Chronicles
With his bestselling Percy Jackson and the Olympians series finished and The 39 Clues (for which he designed the story arc and wrote the first installment) well underway, author Rick Riordan announced his next endeavor this past weekend at the Texas Book Fair. Read on »

Blogs

MORE STORIES

Gary Vaynerchuk Tours to Six Airports in 24 Hours
Wine expert Gary Vaynerchuk has a thing for wacky self-promotions, having done everything from appearing on TV's in gas stations, to plastering his book jacket on billboards along New Jersey highways. And now, he’s embarking on a two-day tour to airports in six different cities to promote his new book, Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion. The Hudson Hustle, as Vaynerchuk calls it, entails visits to six Hudson News airport stores between today and tomorrow, at La Guardia, O’Hare, Dallas Fort Worth, Denver, LAX and Newark. Read on »

Advanced Review: Andre Agassi's 'Open: An Autobiography'
PW calls Andre Agassi's anticipated new memoir, Open--in which the tennis great claims to have hated the sport which made him famous and, at one point, taken crystal meth--"refreshingly candid." Read on »

Comings and Goings
If you've been laid off recently, left your job or landed a new position and would like to pass along your contact information to others in the business, send details to pwletters@reedbusiness.com. Please include your full name and former title/company.

T.S. Ferguson, former assistant editor for Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, can be reached at tsferguson1@gmail.com.

You can find a full list of all those who have appeared in Comings and Goings here.

The PW Morning Report
BN.com to Expand Overseas; Lone Star Book Festival; More on BookServer; Books Top App Store; Palin’s Literary Wake. Read on »

AUTHORS ON THE AIR

Authors on the Air: Say You’re One of Them; Jamie Oliver; Audrey Niffenegger
Tonight, Oprah.com, CNN.com and Facebook present a live webcast with Nigerian-born Jesuit priest Uwem Akpan, author of the current Oprah's Book Club selection Say You’re One of Them (Back Bay Books, 978-0316086370, $14.99; Hachette Audio CD, $18.98), which PW’s starred review called a “rich debut collection of five long stories set in war-torn Africa.” Read on »

PICTURE OF THE DAY

'Giving' On 'Today'
Cami Walker, author of 29 Gifts: How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life (Da Capo Lifelong Books), appeared on the Today show October 26 to discuss her book. Pictured here (l. to r.), in the green room, are: Mark Atherla, Walker’s husband; Walker; Meredith Vieira; and Rita Rosenkranz, Walker’s literary agent. Submit your pictures here »