News Briefs: Week of 7/26/10

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to Distribute Zest Books

Zest Books, a San Francisco publisher of books for teens, has moved its distribution to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. The new distribution arrangement will be effective in January 2011.

Distribution: Midpoint Teams with CodeMantra; Sterling Adds Client

Midpoint Trade Books has signed an agreement with digital conversion company codeMantra to offer digital distribution services to independent publishers. In a more traditional deal, Sterling Publishing has agreed to distribute White Star Publishers.

Square One Acquires Safe Goods

Garden City, N.Y.-based Square One Publishers has acquired Safe Goods Publishing, based in Sheffield, Mass. Through the deal Square One, as of August 28, takes charge of the company's existing stock and backlist.

Harlequin Builds A Nonfiction Presence

Just about two years after it launched its nonfiction list, Harlequin is preparing to release its biggest title in the category to date, Your Best Body Now: Look and Feel Fabulous at Any Age the Eat-Clean Way by Tosca Reno, whose Eat-Clean Diet series has sold nearly one million copies for Reno's Canadian publishing house Robert Kennedy Publishing (distributed in the U.S. by NBN).

News Briefs: Week of 7/19/10

Penguin Uses 'Kite Runner' to Aid Afghanistan

Penguin is attempting to breathe new life into two popular backlist titles and doing good in the process. Its Picture a Book Changing Lives campaign is asking readers to submit photos of themselves holding a copy of either The Kite Runner or A Thousand Splendid Suns (or both) by Khaled Hosseini. For each photo, Riverhead Books, publisher of both titles, will donate $2 to the Khaled Hosseini Foundation.

New Plagiarism Suit Against Harry Potter and Scholastic

The estate of Adrian Jacobs is going global in its pursuit of copyright infringement against J.K. Rowling and the publishers of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. After suing Bloomsbury in the U.K. last year and adding Rowling as a defendant in February, estate trustee Paul Allen has filed a new suit against Scholastic.

'PW' Launches New News Blog

Today PW launches PWxyz, a new blog dedicated to up-to-the-minute publishing news, information about authors and publishing houses, e-books and e-readers, and analysis of book news from all over the Internet. Edited by PW's senior web editor Craig Morgan Teicher (who recently rejoined the PW staff after a stint as founding editor of MediaBistro’s e-book blog eBookNewser), PWxyz will also feature contributions from PW staffers from all our departments.

New Era for Penguin Canada

Relief was the prevailing sentiment in response to last week's announcement by Penguin Group that it had named longtime Penguin executive Mike Bryan to succeed David Davidar as president of Penguin Canada. Agents were relieved that Penguin appears to be honoring its commitment to Canadian publishing while Penguin management was relieved to put the entire Davidar episode behind it.

News Briefs: Week of 7/12/10

Little Shop of Horror

Fans of horror and dark fantasy have an astounding appetite for lavish limited-edition hardcovers. Producing close to 60 genre titles a year in print runs as small as 250, Subterranean Press is happy to keep those readers fed.

Terror Eternal: The enduring popularity of H.P. Lovecraft

For nearly a century, a formidable presence has cast its shadow over horror publishing. As protean as it is pervasive, it has insinuated itself into virtually all aspects of the genre's publishing platform: trade publishing, specialty press, comics and graphic novels, role-playing game scenarios, movie novelizations, audiobooks, Web zines, and now e-books. It's the spirit—or, if you will, the shade—of H.P. Lovecraft

The PW Morning Report: Friday, July 9, 2010

Today it's all about Sony's rumored hybrid device, how Borders UK won't pay, and Denis Johnson's papers.

Medallion to Publish YA Titles by YA Writers

Medallion Press is venturing into unfamiliar territory, in announcing the launch of its new Ya-Ya line of fiction and nonfiction for young adult readers ages 13-18. Not only is the Ya-Ya line intended for teen readers, but the titles in the imprint will actually be written by teen authors.

Stern Kept in Limbo With Job at Crown Awaiting Her

The usually slow summer publishing season has been given a jolt by an unusual corporate tug-of-war for Viking editor-in-chief Molly Stern. Matt Flamm, reporting in Crain's last week, described the situation as a "publishing-industry smack-down" in which Stern, trying to defect to oversee Crown's general interest imprints (Crown Publishers and Broadway Books), is being held not-so-ceremoniously to her contract with Viking.

The PW Morning Report: Thursday, July 8, 2010

Today we've got a roundup-roundup, news about the rise and fall of various gadgets, and a hometown look at thew prez of Penguin Canada.

Licensing Hotline: July 2010

News from the recent Licensing International show in Las Vegas, including new Star Wars books, Discovery Channel and Animal Planet deals, Dr. Seuss news, and more tidbits.

Layoffs at Clarkson Potter

PW has learned that a handful of staffers have been laid off at Clarkson Potter. A spokesperson for Random House's Crown Publishing Group confirmed that "a small number of positions" were eliminated in its illustrated publishing program, but declined to discuss further details. In the April reogranization of Crown, the Clarkson Potter imprints along with Watson-Guptill, The Monacelli Press and Ten Speed Press were put in a division under the direction of Lauren Shakely and focused on four-color, lifestyle and cooking titles.

The PW Morning Report: Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Why print books are better than e-books, Emily Dickinson's epilepsy, and a cool fall books preview, all in today's PW Morning Report.