By Rachel Deahl & Liz Thomson - 10/14/2009
A Michael Jackson graphic novel project is one of the books that generated interest as Day 1 of the Frankfurt Book Fair comes to a close. Attendance was off modestly
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Frankfurt Book Fair: Penguin Adopts New Global Management Approach By Jim Milliot - 10/14/2009
To ensure that it is properly positioned to take advantage of growth opportunities in digital and emerging markets, Penguin Group has made some changes to its global management structure and publishing strategy. The new alignment puts the CEOs of four of Penguin’s major subsidiaries in charge of different regions to help promote what Penguin chairman John Makinson calls a local market focus combined with a global publishing approach.
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Frankfurt Book Fair: Penguin, John Wiley in China Deals By Liz Thomson and Lynn Andriani - 10/14/2009
With China as the featured country at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair, Penguin and John Wiley used the occasion to announce new China initiatives.
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Frankfurt Book Fair: Writers House Announces Simultaneous Six-Country Release of Follett’s Next Novel By Lynn Andriani - 10/14/2009
The first major deal out of this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair involves an international laydown of Ken Follett’s next novel, Fall of Giants, which will be the first title in Follett’s New Century Trilogy. The simultaneous six-country release—set for September 28, 2010—will coincide with the airing of an eight-hour Pillars of the Earth TV miniseries next fall.
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Frankfurt Book Fair: SBS Unveils New E-commerce Hub 10/13/2009
International supply chain manager SBS Worldwide Publishers has unveiled “a faster, cheaper and easier way to ship books from printers to customers.” “We have taken our logistics expertise and combined it with our extensive knowledge of the publishing industry to develop eDC (electronic Distribution Centre) specifically for this market,” explained SBS chairman Steve Walker.
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Frankfurt Book Fair: Americans Watching Costs Amid Weak Economy By Jim Milliot - 10/13/2009
At last year’s Frankfurt Book Fair, many international visitors were preoccupied with the financial meltdown that was occurring on a daily basis, particularly in the U.S. While the downturn began before last year’s Fair, most industry members, having made arrangements far in advance, decided to make the trip. Although the economy may actually be in better shape this fall than in 2008, many American publishers, though not all, have scaled back.
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Frankfurt Book Fair: P2P Threat May Be Overstated 10/13/2009
At the Magellan Media Partners’ ToC session, Brian O’Leary told the attendees he’s looking to earn their trust, since he’s hoping they’d either join the research project he’s conducting on the effects of piracy on the book publishing business, or measure it on their own.
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Frankfurt Book Fair: Entrekin Selling Portion of Stake in Grove Atlantic London By Liz Thomson - 10/13/2009
As has been widely predicted since Anthony Cheetham came aboard, Toby Mundy, chairman and publisher of Grove Atlantic London (GAL) has announced a restructure designed to "provide the company with the resources and the strategy to take its place amongst the leaders in the UK's independent publishing sector."
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Frankfurt Book Fair: Sara Lloyd Kicks Off First European TOC By Rachel Deahl - 10/13/2009
Most seats were taken at the opening keynote for the first Tools of Change conference in Europe, taking place on Tuesday, one day before this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair. Sara Lloyd of Pan Macmillan kicked off the event, continuing a speech she gave at the TOC in New York in February and formally dubbed in Frankfurt “Revisiting a Publishing Manifesto: What Does the Future Look Like for Publishers?”
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Questions Mount Before Debut of International Kindle by Jim Milliot & Rachel Deahl - 10/12/2009
Amazon has given the international publishing community plenty to ponder as it gathered this week for the Frankfurt Book Fair. The pending (Oct. 19) release of a $279 Kindle that will be available for sale in more than 100 countries has raised a variety of questions. Here are the most pressing. How will the integrity of territorial rights be maintained? What will be the impact of digital edition...
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Pre-Frankfurt Deals: Two Iowa Writers' M.F.A.s Go at Auction By Rachel Deahl - 10/08/2009
Closing a five-way auction just before the Frankfurt Book Fair, Brian DeFiore sold North American rights to 26-year-old Benjamin Hale's debut to Cary Goldstein at Twelve. Another Iowa graduate, Anna Keesey, just sold her debut novel, Little Century, at auction, to Courtney Hodell at FSG.
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Kindle Goes International; U.S. Price Lowered By Jim Milliot - 10/07/2009
Amazon announced last night that it will begin shipping a new device with U.S. and international wireless access October 19. The new Kindle, priced at $279, will be available in more than 100 countries, Amazon said, and will have more than 200,000 English-language books. Amazon also said it is lowering the price of its U.S.-only Kindle from $299 to $259.
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Rizzoli New York Publishing in French By Lynn Andriani - 10/01/2009
Starting this fall, Rizzoli's New York office will begin publishing some titles in French. Although the publisher has a sister company, Flammarion, in Paris, which already publishes books in French, this marks the first time French-language editions of Rizzoli books will originate from the New York office.
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PEN Protests German Publisher’s Exclusion from U.S. By Lynn Andriani - 10/02/2009
PEN American Center yesterday issued a letter to Secretary of State Clinton and Secretary of Homeland Security Napolitano, urging them to review the decision to revoke the visa of German publisher and PEN member Karl-Dietrich Wolff, who was denied entry to the U.S. on September 25. PEN said not allowing Wolff into the country “sends the wrong message about our country’s commitment to the First Amendment.”
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Frankfurt Book Fair: Survey Finds Publishers In Search of New Business Models By Jim Milliot - 09/28/2009
Just over 72% of publishers taking part in a survey on the impact of digitization on book publishing said the development of new business models, new multimedia products and effective marketing strategies are the biggest challenges facing publishers as they make the transition from print to digital.
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Cookbook Publishing in Brazil, Eating in Ipanema By Lynn Andriani - 09/28/2009
Tall and tan and young and... hungry? I recently spent a week in Brazil, attending a book fair in Rio de Janeiro and meeting with book publishers in São Paulo. Although the purpose of the trip was for me to get an overview of Brazil’s publishing industry, I also got a fantastic impression of Brazil’s food culture. Here’s a look at what I ate in Brazil, how cookbooks are marketed there, and how well one cookbook publisher is doing.
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Frankfurt Book Fair: Frankfurt Briefcase 2009 By Rachel Deahl, Liz Thomson and Nicholas Clee - 09/28/2009
Ann Brasheres grows up, Bret Easton Ellis heads back to his L.A. roots, Julia Childs's grand-nephew talks H2O, Julie Powell hits the butcher block, Eoin Colfer does his best Douglas Adams impression and George Romero lays down the rules of zombie-dom—that and more in PW's roundup of the big books up for grabs at this year's fair.
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Recession Wrecks Exports, Imports by Jim Milliot - 09/28/2009
The global impact of the recession is reflected in book export figures for the first half of 2009. According to the U.S. Commerce Department, exports fell 14.6% in the January through June period, dropping to $918.8 million. Exports were down to almost all trading partners, with the steepest declines coming in shipments to China and Germany.
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Bologna Reinstates Fourth Day By Nicholas Clee, BookBrunch - 09/21/2009
The Bologna Children's Book Fair has yielded to protests and reinstated the fourth day of the event. The 2010 fair will now take place from Tuesday to Friday, March 23-26. A group of U.K. publishers petitioned Bologna after they had learned that the 2010 fair had been scheduled to take place over three days rather than the usual four. Gloria Bailey, manager of international book fairs at the Publishers Association, met Bologna Fair director Roberta Chinni...
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'The Hypnotist,' Hot LBF Title, Tops in Sweden 09/21/2009
Not too much new fiction made it to the top of the lists in the major European markets in August, but there was a new bestseller in Sweden, with The Hypnotist by Lars Kepler landing at #1. The novel was one of the hot books at the London Book Fair and was bought for the U.S. after the fair closed by Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
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