Category Archives: Uncategorized

BEA, Day One

We made it through the first full day of BEA in one piece. Here are our notes. Were there, as we reported last month, cost-cutting strategies in effect? Looks like it, yup. Random House‘s booth is tiny, with no galleys, no tote bags, and hardly any catalogs. Most of the other large publishers’ spaces are intact, with plush…Continue Reading

IDPF Digital Book 2009: Forget DRM

The afternoon panels and presentations at yesterday’s International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) Digital Book 2009 were filled with promises of impending hardware and software innovations. Sony Director of Business Development Bob Nell talked about the number of outlets that will be selling the Sony Reader next Christmas–6,000, which is double last year’s number–and hinted that…Continue Reading

Jacket Copy Sells Books, So Make It Good.

Would you rather read a “splendid, funny, lyrical book about family, truth, memory, and the resilience of love” or a “powerful novel” about “the strength of love and loss, the searing ramifications of war, and the mysterious, almost magical bonds that unite and sustain us”? A “poignant celebration of the potency of familial love” or…Continue Reading

Book View, May 2009

PEOPLE ROUNDUP Broadway’s Editor-in-Chief Stacy Creamer will join Simon & Schuster as VP and Publisher of Touchstone Fireside, reporting to Free Press Publisher Martha Levin. The two lines “will have independently functioning editorial and publishing staffs,” according to the announcement….Current T/F Publisher Mark Gompertz takes on the new role of EVP, Digital Publishing. He and…Continue Reading

Jacket Copy Case Study: Come Sunday by Isla Morley

We chose three titles to be included in the Codex Group jacket copy survey. One was Come Sunday, which will be published in June by Sarah Crichton Books/FSG. Though Come Sunday had the weakest title and cover impact of the three books we tested, the added appeal of its jacket copy made it the book…Continue Reading

Sarah Crichton on the Jacket Copy for Come Sunday

“Writing the jacket copy for Come Sunday was agony! Here were the challenges: An unknown author; the plot hinges on the fact that a little girl dies in the first chapter, a fact which can drive away the very audience we’re trying to attract, and which might make the book sound like a downer when…Continue Reading

Swedish Crimes and Turkish Tales

After making the rounds at Bologna and London, some international publishers and agents are choosing to give their expense accounts a rest and opt out of this year’s BEA. “I remember the good old times when there was just…Frankfurt!” says Marie Louise Zarmanian, translation rights manager at Editoriale Mauri Spagnol, who blames Guadalajara, Turin, and…Continue Reading

What’s New at BEA 2009

Last fall, BookExpo America formed its first-ever Conference Advisory Board and decided to increase the show’s focus on content and programming. “In the past, we had too many sessions that were all over the map and that were trying to be all things to all people,” says Courtney Muller, Group Vice President of BEA. In…Continue Reading

Bologna, from a Licensing POV

PT thanks The Licensing Letter’s Ira Mayer for his reporting. Visiting the Bologna Children’s Book Fair in March after an absence of a dozen or so years was a wonderful reminder of how vibrant an art form children’s books are. While the children’s book market is dominated by name brands (Disney, Marvel, Nickelodeon, etc., as…Continue Reading

What’s the Story with Bookspan?

Despite its sale by the Bertelsmann Group to Najafi Companies last year, Bookspan’s 21 book clubs (including Book-of-the-Month Club, Doubleday Book Club, Quality Paperback Club, and Literary Guild) still exist. Given the company’s tumultuous past few years, how has it held up? (For news on other book clubs, click here.) Numbers don’t mean everything, but…Continue Reading