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Whither the Midlist Publisher?
For nearly a decade, some say even longer, people in the publishing industry have been decrying the death of the midlist. Now, after a cluster of small presses have sprung up that trade in specialized categories and literary fiction, more commercial authors, abandoned by their big publishers, are finding there aren’t many options in the middle.
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Hay House Fiction Debut Marks 25 Years
In a major departure for Hay House, the self-help and spirituality publisher is jumping into the fiction market. Its debut mystery novel, The First Rule of Ten by psychologist Gay Hendricks and screen writer Tinker Lindsay, will be published in January. Hay House has signed up 10 additional titles for its fiction list, with many more to come.
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Podcast: PW's Week Ahead for Friday, November 4
This week, PW Reviews director offers a peak behind PW’s 100 Best Books list, and Rose Fox tells us why PW’s reviews section has its heart set on Valentine’s Day when the rest of us haven’t had Thanksgiving Dinner yet!
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Harvard Business Review Announces New Leadership Team
Harvard Business Review Press, the book publishing unit of Harvard Business Review Group, has named Sarah McConville as publisher and Tim Sullivan as editorial director.
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Scribner to Publish First Novel from Owen King
Owen King, the son of Stephen King, has signed with his father's publisher for his first novel, Reenactment. The Simon & Schuster imprint calls the book an "epic, comic" work, and will release it in spring 2013.
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Caro's Fourth Johnson Bio Hits in May 2012
Knopf will publish the fourth volume of Robert A. Caro's Lyndon Johnson biography next May. The book, titled The Passage of Power, continues the story told in Master of the Senate (2002), Means of Ascent (1990) and The Path to Power (1982). The books have been honored with a National Book Award, a Pulitzer Prize, and two awards from the National Book Critics Circle. Collectively, they've sold 1.5 million copies.
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Vintage Español Publishing Edition of Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs Bio
Vintage Español is publishing a Spanish language edition of Walter Isaacson's just-published bestseller about Apple CEO Steve Jobs. The Random House Spanish language edition of Steve Jobs publishes today and is already in its third printing.
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Triumph Releases Instant Cardinals World Series Book
Triumph, in sticking with its tradition of turning around instant books about major sports victories, is releasing Wild Cards: The St. Louis Cardinals Stunning 2011 Championship Season by Rob Rains, in digital and print today.
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Three Canadian Authors File C$6 Million Copyright Lawsuit
Plagiarism allegations that have been swirling around Ling Zhang’s novel Gold Mountain Blues have now become a C$6 million lawsuit for copyright infringement.
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'The 36-Hour Day' Turns 30
Nancy Mace and Peter Rabins’s The 36-Hour Day has sold 2.5 million copies in both print and digital formats since it was first published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 1981 and is poised to go into a fifth edition with a first printing of 30,000 trade paper and another 5,000 large-print at the beginning of November.
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News Briefs: Week of October 31, 2011
Sales Jump, Earnings Dive At Amazon, and more.
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Moving Quickly At Bettie Youngs Books
When talking business with Bettie Youngs, publisher of Bettie Youngs Books, you’ll quickly get an idea of the scale of her ambition, as you’ll hear a lot of numbers. She wrote her first book in graduate school and has since authored 36 books, and now, at BYBooks, seven of her company’s last 12 memoirs are being developed or acquired for film. BYBooks has published 20 titles in the past 15 months and has more than 150 signed contracts in place. Her most recent title is Amazing Adventures of a Nobody by reality TV host Leon Logothetis (whose shows, on channels like Discovery, have aired in 100 countries).
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Akashic to Publish Real Kids' Book Based on 'Go the F*** to Sleep' Parody
It may have been a “fluke hit,” but Akashic Books publisher Johnny Temple says Adam Mansbach and Ricardo Cortes’ bestselling kids' book parody, Go the F**k to Sleep, has spent six months on the bestseller lists and has more than 500,000 copies in print.
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Distribution: Consortium Adds Three Overseas Publishers
Consortium has announced three new overseas publishers for the spring 2012 season: MCCM Creations, Nobrow Press, and Promopress.
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NYU’s Center for Publishing Holds Industry Insider Panel
The ramifications of shrinking shelf space and speed to market were two of the topics touched on in the latest NYU Media Talk series, presented Tuesday afternoon.
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Distribution News: IPS Adds 4, SCB Adds 8
SCB and Ingram Publishers Services Inc., an Ingram Content Group Company, announced distribution agreements with a total of a dozen new clients here and abroad. “IPS is pleased to welcome these four independent publishers to our growing list of clients,” said v-p and general manager Mark Ouimet. “We are eager to put our unique combination of solutions to work on behalf of each to help them expand their reach in the marketplace and grow their businesses worldwide.”
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Darien Library to Install Espresso Book Machine
The Darien Library in Darien, Ct. will unveil an Espresso Book Machine at Darien Library’s annual meeting on Sunday, October 30. The Darien Library will be the first public library on the East Coast to have an EBM on site.
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Thomas Nelson Opens Publishing Division in Mexico
Thomas Nelson Publishers has opened a new division, Thomas Nelson Mexico. Officially launched August 1, a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the new facility was held last week in Mexico City.
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University of Michigan Press Uses Twitter to Promote New Releases
The University of Michigan Press launched their second social media marketing campaign Monday, this time on Twitter.
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DK Publishing Bounces Back
When Penguin began the restructuring of DK Publishing in 2009, it had two main objectives—to reduce the size of its list and to cut editorial costs to improve the profitability of its illustrated book group. What it hadn’t counted on was the phenomenal success of its publishing partnership with Lego. “That’s been the cherry on top,” said Peter Field, a Penguin veteran who took over responsibility for DK in summer 2009 as CEO. Since the Lego license kicked in, in fall 2009, DK has sold 6.5 million units through June 2011 and has 25 titles in its catalogue. The top-sellers in the line this year are LEGO Star Wars Ultimate Sticker Collection; LEGO Harry Potter: Building the Magical World; and LEGO Star Wars: The Visual Dictionary.
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