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A Peek at the July 26 'PW'
Two stories based on the news that Amazon is now selling more e-books than hardcovers lead off the July 26 issue with one piece examining how quickly readers are leaving print for digital and a second on how the digital transformation could impact doing big longterm book deals. The international bestsellers lists finds vampires and Swedes selling well. How booksellers are making money from self-published authors is the focus in retailing. Large feature well has articles on Scribd, hobbies and crafts, and religion listings.
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Novelist Plays to Church Crowds on New Tour
Laura Pedersen's latest novel isn't about faith but, rather, a teenage card shark and horse handicapper named Hallie Palmer. That fact makes it all the more unlikely that the author is preaching to crowds at Unitarian Universalist churches about the new YA book, Best Bet.
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Garden Authors Create a Speakers Bureau
Five garden authors--including Amy Stewart, Wicked Plants (Algonquin); Debra Prinzing, Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways (Clarkson Potter); and Scott Calhoun, Designer Plant Combinations (Storey)--joined forces and talents to create a Web site to be a one-stop-shop resource for the kinds of venues that book garden/nature speakers.
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'Los Angeles Review of Books' to Launch This Fall
The Los Angeles Review of Books, an online periodical that will include multiplatform book reviews, author profiles, Skype interviews, and readings as well as critical essays on classic authors will launch in the fall under the direction of Tom Lutz, professor and chair of the creative writing department at the University of California at Riverside.
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A Peek at the July 19 'PW'
On the five-month anniversary of the Google fairness hearing, Monday's PW asks a number of experts to predict if Judge Chin will rule for or against the landmark agreement. Separate pieces look at the progress of Harlequin's nonfiction program and NetGalley. With the introduction of new devices, we analyze the future of digital comics. In retailing, a look at Event Network, the $100 million company that runs book/gift stores at museums and other institutions. And July 19 is the children's announcement issue;there are three features devoted to this still vibrant segment.
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Author Brings Readings to Hotels
The swanky Four Seasons Hotel in Manhattan may be a hot spot for publishing power lunches, but Alix Strauss, whose new novel, Based Upon Availability (Harper), takes place there, could help make it--or at least, others like it--a regular hangout for authors and readers, as well.
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The Rumpus Book Club Draws Savvy Readers to Cool Books
The words "book club" and "cool" have rarely appeared in the same sentence, until recently. The Rumpus (www.therumpus.net), the online culture magazine founded and edited by author Stephen Elliott, may have created the first truly cool book club.
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A Peek at the July 12 'PW'
With publishers and e-bookstores experimenting with e-book prices, the lead item in Monday's magazine looks at e-book prices from a variety of sources and the influence of the agency model. The relatively quick appointment of a successor to David Davidar brings relief to Canadian agents and Penguin execs, interviews with the parties found. A new book club from The Rumpus, and Ecco's drive into cookbooks are the subjects of separate pieces. In retail, interviews with a number of bookstores in resort towns find the summer season off to a good start. The main feature looks at the legacy of H.P. Lovecraft on the very popular horror genre.
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Franzen Pushes Backlist Stead Into Spotlight, Back to Press
Thanks to a rave essay by Jonathan Franzen that graced the cover of the New York Times Book Review on June 6, Picador is seeing new life for a novel with some singular praise that has remained, throughout its publication, largely unknown: Christina Stead’s The Man Who Loved Children.
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Accurate Metadata Sells Books
There was a time when metadata—descriptive information such as a book's title, author, or BISAC codes—was something only the warehouse crew had to worry about.
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PoliPoint Scores with Obama Book, Apple
Sausalito, Calif., independent press PoliPoint Press has had a good week, going back to press on a book that lambasts the extreme right wing, and putting its first six titles into Apple's iBookstore. The new book, Over the Cliff: How Obama's Election Drove the American Right Insane, had a first printing of 10,000 copies and has gone back to press two week after its release.
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GetGlue Partners with Book Publishers
GetGlue, an online community that has positioned itself as a sort of Four Square for media, where users can get recommendations on books, movies, TV, and other media, has started partnering with book publishers. The launch Thursday of 13 book "stickers" ties in to a few of this summer's big books, including The Passage and the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series.
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Cornell's Promotion Firm Takes Flight
Within a month of leaving his nine-year tenure last November as director of events for Book Soup in West Hollywood, Tyson Cornell founded Rare Bird Literary Events & Promotions, a company that includes public relations for authors, literary branding, and multimedia promotions.
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Grand Central Forms Promotional Partnership with Kingdom Records
Hachette's Grand Central Publishing division has entered into a partnership with the gospel record label Kingdom Records Inc. that will pair African American authors and gospel musicians in cross-promotional marketing efforts and events.
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Tor.com Offers Free Excerpt of New Sanderson Novel
Tor.com, the Macmillan Web site/publishing venture focused on launching original science fiction, fantasy prose and Web comics, is offering a teaser today of bestselling author Brandon Sanderson's new novel, The Way of Kings, which it plans to publish August 31. At 12 PM EST today, Tor.com will post an exclusive first excerpt of the novel.
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Short Order: May 10
This installment of cookbook-related news includes information on a chef tasting event at NYC's Housing Works bookstore, more blog-to-book deals, an iPhone app from Michael Ruhlman, and pics from the LA Times Book Festival.
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Delores Custer Makes Food Look Good
Delores Custer has been styling food for 30 years, working with cookbook publishers and print advertisers ranging from Red Lobster to Cuisinart, and now she's written a book explaining all her tricks. Although Food Styling: The Art of Preparing Food for the Camera (Wiley, May) is really a guide for professionals, it features plenty of fun tidbits for anyone who wants to make their food look good. When should you use a white plate, and when should you use a colored plate? How do you easily cut layers of cake the same thickness? Find the center of pies and cakes? Get that pesky "Sunkist" stamp off a lemon? Make pancakes that are an even color and consistent in size? Read on for a sampling of the book's food styling factoids, and for truly drool-worthy photographs, visit Custer's website.
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Authors on the Air: Gail Sheehy; 'Orphaned on the Ocean'; Lisa Whelchel
Authors on this morning's Today show included bestseller Gail Sheehy, whose Passages in Caregiving: Turning Chaos into Confidence (Morrow, 978-0061661204, $27.99) is just out this week.
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Bowker, Google Team to Assign Some ISBNs
Bowker is teaming with Google to help provide and assign ISBN numbers for books being published through Google Editions, Google's new bookselling venture set to launch this summer.
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Mass Market Paperbacks Hang On, for Now
The mass market paperback category certainly has its fair share of problems--dwindling shelf space, the loss of nonfiction titles to trade paperback, and enormous returns--all of which have contributed to steadily falling sales. With mass market sales declining and e-book sales skyrocketing, some industry members have started to wonder when e-book sales will surpass sales of mass market paperbacks. While mass market paperback publishers acknowledge the difficulties--and the possibility that e-book sales could eat into their sales--they insist the format remains a viable one, particularly for certain categories.
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