Lots of movement at Barnes & Noble: Liz Scheier has joined Barnes & Noble.com as Editorial Director, working with publishers to create “unique, exclusive content digital opportunities throughout our digital distribution platforms, including in store programs” and reporting to Theresa Horner, VP Digital Products. She was most recently Director of Publishing Relations at ScrollMotion and previously an editor at Random House and Penguin. Mike Ferrari has left the company. He had held several positions there, most recently Director, Digital Content at B&N.com.

Margot Schupf has joined Sterling Innovation as VP, Publisher. She was SVP, Editorial Director, Digital Publishing for the Morrow/Avon/Eos group.

With the demise of Air America, website Editor-in-Chief Beau Friedlander may now be reached at simnyc [at] rcn.com.

Ron Marshall, Borders CEO for barely a year, has resigned to join A&P. Michael Edwards, who joined Borders last fall as EVP and Chief Merchandising Officer, has been named interim CEO. He will report to Mick McGuire, Chairman of the Borders board. Also at Borders, Dan Angus has become VP, Customer Loyalty, and will be in charge of loyalty marketing programs and initiatives. Angus was formerly VP, Customer Relationship Marketing, for Guitar Center.

Scott Lubeck, most recently VP of Technology for Wolters Kluwer Health, Professional and Education, has been appointed Executive Director of the Book Industry Study Group (BISG). Lubeck has also held executive positions with Harvard Business School Publishing and Newsstand, Inc., as well as with Perseus and National Academy Press.

Nicholas Brealey announced that John Groton has been named Sales Director for the North American operations based in Boston. He joins Editorial Director Erika Heilman and Finance Director Jill Friedlander. He was most recently at Globe Pequot, following many years at Random House.

Whitney Peeling is leaving PublicAffairs to “volunteer for a few months in India and Bangladesh.” Jaime Leifer returns as Publicity Director. Leifer was at Perseus from 2001–07 and was most recently Public Relations Manager at The New Yorker.

Sydny Miner has been named VP, Executive Editor of the Crown Publishing Group after 26 years with Simon & Schuster.

Kevin Hamric has left Quayside to join The News Group as VP, Book Operations. He will also be working with TNG’s sister companies, Select Media Services and ProLogix.

HarperCollins Digital announced the formation of three teams: Author Services, headed by Carolyn Pittis, SVP, HC Digital; Global Author Services Consumer Products, headed by Joe Park, currently CEO of BibleGateway/Zondervan and a former Amazon executive; and Business Development, where Leslie Hulse continues. In addition, Larry Nevins announced the formation of the Digital Technology Services Group. Mike McGinniss, VP of Emerging Technologies, will move into the newly created role of SVP, Digital Technology Services. Greg Mucci has been named Director of Digital Technology Operations. He had been a consultant at HarperCollins.

Direct Brands has hired David Gitow as CMO and Alan Katz as EVP, Business Development, the first major appointments under new CEO Deborah Fine. Gitow was CMO at both B&N.com and Barnes & Noble, and founded and ran Time, Inc. Home Entertainment.

Elizabeth Evans has joined the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency. She has worked at Kimberley Cameron & Associates (formerly the Reece Halsey Agency) for the past six years.

Mary Dolan has left Kaplan, where she was Executive Director of Sales, to join Harvard Business Press.

The Library of America has hired Trish Hoard as Production Editor. Hoard was previously Managing Editor at Counterpoint and Associate Publisher at Shoemaker & Hoard. She replaces retiring Managing Editor Sharon Graham.

Rubin Pfeffer, most recently Simon & Schuster SVP of Children’s Publishing, has joined East/West Literary Agency. Pfeffer is focusing on projects with a digital component and will head up the East Coast branch of the agency as a partner and content agent, a new position.

Joe Esposito, one-time President of Encyclopedia Britannica and earlier at Random House, has signed on as CEO of GiantChair, which provides direct marketing services for the publishing industry on the internet. He reports to Cory McCloud, the company’s founder and president for technology. Most of GiantChair’s operations are based in Europe, but Esposito remains in California.

PROMOTIONS AND INTERNAL CHANGES

Nicole Reardon has been promoted to Associate Director of Marketing at HarperCollins, replacing Christine Boyd, who left at the end of 2009. Reardon reports to Angie Lee, who has been promoted to VP Marketing.

Frances Gilbert has been promoted from VP, Editorial Director to VP, Publisher, Sterling Children’s, which includes the imprints Sterling Children’s Books, Sandy Creek Press, Begin Smart, and Flash Kids.

NAL’s Brent Howard has been promoted to Editor. At Random House Publishing Group, Kathleen McAuliffe has been promoted to Marketing Manager, Trade Paperbacks. Camille Dewing-Vallejo has been promoted to Senior Copywriter and Elizabeth Eno to Designer. At Bantam Dell, Randall Klein has been promoted to Associate Editor.

Tom Roberge has been named Associate Editor at Penguin, and remains publishing coordinator there.

Lance Fensterman has been promoted to Group VP at Reed Exhibitions and will now devote his attention exclusively to running and growing the company’s Pop Culture business. Steven Rosato has been promoted to replace him as Event Director of BookExpo America.

HarperOne Associate Publisher Claudia Boutote is being promoted to SVP. Executive Editor Gideon Weil has been promoted to VP.

DULY NOTED

OverDrive released interesting statistics about its library business in 2009: 401 million website pages viewed by library patrons (69% growth over 2008) and 8.7 million digital titles checked out (63% increase over 2008); and 4 billion minutes of spoken-word audio downloaded from library websites, with a 70% increase in audiobook checkouts over 2008. E-book checkouts increased by 53%. And there was a 40% increase in new library users over 2008. 2009’s most downloaded adult fiction audiobook was The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown; the most downloaded nonfiction audiobook was 25 Things to Say to the Interviewer to Get the Job You Want by Dexter Hawk. The most downloaded adult fiction e-book was The Lost Symbol; the most downloaded adult nonfiction e-book was Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. OverDrive also releases monthly “Most Downloaded Books from the Library” lists.

UPCOMING EVENTS

The Books for a Better Life Awards, which honor self-help books and have raised over $1.6 million for the New York City – Southern New York Chapter of the National MS Society since 1996, will take place on February 22 at NYC’s Millennium Broadway Hotel. Robin Roberts, co-anchor of ABC News’ “Good Morning America,” hosts the awards and Carolyn Reidy, President and CEO, of Simon & Schuster, Inc., will be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

The Book Business Publishing Business Conference and Expo takes place March 8–10 at the New York Marriott Marquis. Speakers include Susan Danziger, CEO of DailyLit; Laura Dawson, President of LJNDawson; Bob Miller, President and Publisher of HarperStudio; and Steve Forbes, Chairman and CEO of Forbes Media.

BAM’s Eat, Drink & Be Literary brings authors to Brooklyn’s BAMcafé for dinners, readings, and discussions. Upcoming speakers include Lynn Nottage (February 11), Sam Lipsyte (March 11), Colm Tóibín (April 8), and Joshua Ferris (April 22).

IN MEMORIAM

Karen Hansgen, Associate Publisher of Skira/Rizzoli, died in her sleep on January 10. A memorial service was held on January 15.

Grimly bookended by the collapses of Woolworths and Borders, 2009 was suffused with the smell of crisis and peppered with job loss announcements, but ended up being merely bad rather than catastrophic, with sales forecast to be only a little down on the year before. It was the mix that made the year tough: Fiction brands hit their targeted chart spots only to be knocked off the top quickly by the next blockbuster, their sell-on curtailed by anxious consumers, and with the demise of Richard and Judy, no mid-market surprises to compensate. In broad terms, the big houses suffered while the smaller ones flourished, and the end of Borders, with its support for the unusual voice or quirky angle, only made more selective the already Darwinian bottleneck in our channels to market. Stephenie Meyer and Dan Brown sucked much of the oxygen out of the rest of the fiction market and in the run up to the holiday season, out of the nonfiction celebrity market too, leaving the industry with a fresh legacy of unearned advances. The polarizing effect of risk aversion increased and in general, advances reduced for all but the most surefire bestselling brands.

I heard some marketing guy once opine that Price = Cost + Emotion, and the 70% discounts offered by some retailers this Christmas suggest they’re not all that confident about the Emotion bit. What Emotion there was came in the shape of Immortals, Angels and Zombies, the familiar roar of the biggest brands and the promise of substantial sales at last from digital publishing. In a year full of new devices, price wars around those devices, all sorts of new apps and enhanced editions, Kindle was finally launched, while Google and Apple came closer to doing so, and an intensified focus on piracy hinted at the promise of real business to come, and soon. We can hope that what we lose in bricks and mortar we may more than gain in digital sales, the overwhelming majority of which are made so far to those over 35 years old: Now all we need to do is get people to pay a reasonable price for them.

Joakim Hansson, agent and director of the Nordin Agency in Stockholm, recently returned from London riding high on the crime wave that has helped him make the second largest book deal in Sweden’s history. Mons Kallentoft is still reaping the benefits of his switch from award-winning literary author to writing what Hansson describes as “literary crime” novels. The Nordin Agency enjoyed successful U.S. sales of other Swedish crime writers, including Christian Moerk to Henry Holt and Camilla Läckberg to Pegasus.

The first title in Kallentoft’s series, Midwinter Sacrifice, has so far sold more than 220,000 copies in Sweden, and the second title, Summertime Death, has also appeared on Swedish bestseller lists. While at LBF, Natur & Kultur bought the rights to the next three books in the series for an amount rumored to be around $1 million, a hefty sum for a country with a population around nine million. The murder mysteries follow Molin Fors, a single mother and investigator. The series spans three different violent crimes that Fors must unravel while battling not only frozen plains and deadly wildfires, but also those who eventually pursue both her and her daughter.

It only takes one small sale to make up for expenses incurred by attending BEA, Hansson points out, and the agency hopes to replicate the success it saw in London in New York. “Stieg Larsson has paved the way,” says Hansson. “In southern Europe people are crazy about European crime, and it is finally catching on in the U.S.” The first excerpts of Kallentoft’s trilogy translated into English were, according to Hansson, “quirky” and did not fit the original style of the book. New translations are in the works and so far offers from the U.S. and UK have been rejected for being insufficient. Rights have been sold to Norway, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Spain, and Italy. For more information, contact joakim [at] nordinagency.com.

Oya Alpar of the Turkish publishing house Altin Kitaplar is also returning from LBF, only to do it all over again for BEA. Alpar’s company publishes many bestselling foreign authors including Stephen King, Christopher Paolini, Patricia Cornwell, and soon, Dan Brown. Aside from those commercial mega-bestsellers, though, even popular titles see relatively low sales figures. The absence of a substantial book-buying community means that “in Turkey, the biggest books sell only 5,000 copies or so,” Alpar says. Like their U.S. counterparts, Turkish publishers are responding to the economy by being more cautious in choosing which books to publish, which can put Turkish writers at an even greater disadvantage—and when publishers are looking for commercial sure bets, local writers are usually the first to get passed up. This month, only one of the top five bestselling authors, Canan Tan, is Turkish. Elif Safak, a French woman of Turkish descent, who—much like Pulitzer Prize winner Orhan Pamuk—was accused and later acquitted of insulting Turkish national identity, is back on the bestseller list with her newest title, Love.

Despite the absence of chain bookstores, independent booksellers in Turkey are still in a fierce battle for survival. Comparatively high rents for storefronts force sellers into smaller spaces with little room for displays, and larger spaces are rare. The move to online purchasing has been slow, and although almost everyone in major cities has internet access, most books are still bought in brick-and-mortar stores.

One author to recently hit Turkish bookstores is Hakan Yel, whose debut thriller, Touching the Sultan (Altin Kitaplar) came out in 2006. Despite the success of that and his second thriller, Restaurant, Yel made the switch to historical fiction for his new novel, Sowers of the Wind. The tale begins in 1915 with the Ottoman Empire on the verge of collapse. Taking advantage of wartime conditions, partisan gangs have launched attacks throughout the Turkish and Armenian communities, robbing caravans and burning down villages. But an Armenian village and a Turkish village located near each other manage to maintain a cordial relationship. However, when one of the villages is found in flames, members of the surviving village turn against one another, in blame and in fear that their village will be next. Yel’s first two titles were published in Bulgaria and Romania and will soon be published in Poland and Japan. For
rights information, contact Nermin Mollaoglu at the Kalem Literary Agency at nerminmollaoglu [at] gmail.com.

Relatively new to the scene, and so far without an agent to call his own (he’s still in negotiations), Czech author Tomáš Zmeškal won’t have representation at BEA. But if he did, editors, you might take note. It took Zmeškal five years to land a publisher for his debut novel, Love Letter in Cuneiform Script. But after a prominent Czech critic known for his less than complimentary reviews praised him and compared him to famous authors including Josef Škvorecký, Bohumil Hrabal, and Salman Rushdie, he became an overnight success, five years in the making.

When asked by Radio Prague how he felt about the sudden attention the review earned his book, Zmeškal admitted he didn’t even know about it at first. “[My friends] didn’t want to bother me with that review because they thought I knew about it, but I didn’t,” he said. Love Letter is the story of a couple who meet before WWII, and it follows them into the post-war communist era. Each chapter tells the story from the perspective of a different character. One of the characters is an Englishman who witnesses a gory Czech tradition of killing and eating carp at Christmas. Like an anthropologist studying a strange tribe, he walks out onto the street in late December to watch in disgust as men in strange outfits kill, clean, and eat the fish, horrifying the observer.

Zmeškal’s father was from the Congo but moved to the Czech Republic, where the author was born and raised. Zmeškal
studied English literature at Cambridge and later taught literature at Charles University in Prague.

Love Letter in Cuneiform Script, published by Czech publisher Torst, was nominated for the prestigious
Magnesia Litera Prize and has already sold 7,000 copies in the Czech Republic. For foreign rights information, contact Edgar de Bruin at ejdb [at] planet.nl.

As was anticipated, Marie Toulantis has resigned from her position as CEO of BarnesandNoble.com. She had been with the company since 2002 and will continue to serve as a consultant. Tom Burke, VP E-Commerce, and Kevin Frain, CFO, have temporarily assumed her duties. They report to Barnes & Noble CEO Steve Riggio.

Marjorie Braman, previously Executive Editor at HarperCollins and Morrow, will become Editor-in-Chief at Henry Holt, a position which has gone unfilled since, ironically, Jennifer Barth departed for HarperCollins in December 2006. Braman starts September 8 and will report to Dan Farley, Henry Holt President and Publisher.

Emmanuel Shalit, the Deputy Managing Director of La Martinière Publishing Group—who oversees U.S. holdings, including Harry N. Abrams—is leaving the company. A new deputy MD will not be appointed, but Group Chairman and CEO Hervé de La Martinière will assume two of his jobs.

Sarah Durand has joined Atria Books as a Senior Editor. She was previously with HarperEntertainment.

Mary Albi has been hired as Director of Sales and Marketing for the new Egmont USA. She most recently held the same title at HarperCollins Children’s Books. Egmont’s first list will launch in Fall 2009.

Jane Rosenman has been hired as an editor at Algonquin. She was formerly an Executive Editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Anna Crowe has joined HMH as a Senior Publicist. She was previously at Bantam Dell.

Bill Frucht has accepted the position of Executive Editor for Political Science and International Relations at Yale University Press. Meanwhile, John Collins has been appointed General Editor of the Anchor Yale Bible Series. He is a professor at Yale Divinity School.

Marian Brown has opened her own publicity business, Marian Brown PR. She was most recently at Bloomsbury and Basic Books.

Johanna Bowman has left McGraw-Hill, where she was an editor in the trade division, to go to Columbia Business School.

Nicholas Brealey has hired Wendy Lazear as Senior Editor. Following Trish O’Hare’s departure, the U.S. office will now be run by Chuck Dresner, who has been promoted to VP, Associate Publisher.

Allison Malec has joined Clarkson Potter as an Associate Marketing Manager, reporting to Donna Passannante. She was at Madison Square Garden and previously at Rodale. Rebecca Behan has moved to Potter Craft as a Developmental Editor reporting to Erica Smith, ME of Potter Craft. She comes from Assouline Publishing, where she was an Editor. Terry Deal has joined the Crown Production Editorial department as a Senior Production Editor. Deal was a Senior Editing Supervisor at McGraw-Hill Professional.

Casualties from the newly instigated category buying at Baker & Taylor are mounting. Thirty-year veteran David Hogue, VP Director of Merchandising, has left, along with at least seven buyers. B&T has hired John Lindsay as VP, Book Merchandising, reporting to Jean Srnecz. Most recently, he was VP Marketing/Merchandising at Levy Home Entertainment with responsibilities for all areas of category management, book buying, marketing, and publisher relations.

Laura Geringer, Publisher of the eponymous Harper Children’s imprint for seventeen years (and a Harper employee since 1980), “has announced her decision to leave her position” at the end of the month. Geringer will spend more time writing, and working on “the development of a new business with the capability of delivering story content on multiple platforms, and to channel more time into First Book.”

Alison Indrisano has been appointed President and CEO of National Geographic School Publishing, starting in early September. She was COO at Prometric, a subsidiary of ETS.

Black Dog & Leventhal announced that Liz Hartman has been appointed to the newly created position of Marketing and Publicity Manager. Her appointment follows the recent additions of Nathaniel Marunas as Associate Publisher and Elizabeth Van Doren as Editor-in-Chief. Hartman was formerly VP, Director of Publicity at Pocket Books and held similar positions at OUP and CUP. She holds a Master’s degree in library science.

Joel C. Turner has become an Advertising Consultant to ForeWord Magazine, working out of his home in Asheville, NC.

PROMOTIONS AND INTERNAL CHANGES

Crown’s Tina Constable has “decided to restructure the department rather than hire a new Editorial Director.” Mary Choteborsky has been promoted to the newly created position of Associate Publishing Manager/Associate Editor, reporting to Constable. Lindsay Orman has been promoted to Associate Editor.

In McGraw-Hill’s Business editorial group, Donya Dickerson has been promoted to Senior Editor. She was an editor.

At Simon & Schuster Children’s, Craig Mandeville has been promoted to VP, General Manager for Adult and Children’s Publishing. Frank Totaro has been appointed to the position of VP, Deputy Publisher, Novelty and Licensed Publishing, effective immediately, and Alyson Grubard has been named Director of Licensing and Brand Management, reporting to Totaro.

At St. Martin’s, Tom Stouras has been promoted to VP Supply Chain and Sales Ops. Steve Faber has been promoted to Inventory Director, Supply Chain and Debbie Derevjanik becomes Director of Analysis and Forecasting, Supply Chain. Both report to Stouras.

DULY NOTED

The Daily Telegraph notes in its August 22 issue that, according to Nielsen, only a dozen books in its 1.8 million titles have appeared in the top 5,000 selling books every week for the last decade, making them the most consistent sellers. The titles include Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks, The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck, and The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield. J. R. R. Tolkien is there, as are J. K. Rowling and Dan Brown. For the full article, click here.

Weinstein Company has moved yet again, to 345 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014, where Penguin Children’s is located. Phone numbers and e-mail addresses remain the same.

The New York Center for Independent Publishing (NYCIP) and the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen announced that the Jane Hope Hastings Philanthropic Trust has awarded a $25,000 grant to help underwrite the NYCIP’s 21st Annual Independent and Small Press Book Fair, which takes place December 6 and 7 at the West 20 West 44th building. For more information, e-mail nycip@nycip.org.

UPCOMING EVENTS

The BISG Annual Meeting of Members is here again. It will be held on September 12 at the Yale Club in New York City. Speakers will include Anita Elberse, Associate Professor at the Harvard Business School, on “Revisiting the Long Tail: Implications for the Book Industry”; Susan Danziger, CEO of DailyLit, on “Books and Busy Lives: Adapting to Changes in Reading Habits”; Mike Shatzkin, CEO of the Idea Logical Company; and Sourcebooks’ Dominique Raccah.

The 2008 Brooklyn Book Festival will be held on Sunday, September 14, at Borough Hall, from 10 AM to 6 PM. Participating authors will include Joan Didion, Richard Price, Jonathan Lethem, Dorothy Allison, Russell Banks, A. M. Homes, Chuck Klosterman, Jimmy Breslin, Pete Hamill, Elizabeth Nunez, Cecily von Ziegesar, and many more.

J. P. Leventhal, Publisher and Founder of Black Dog & Leventhal, has been named the honoree at the Goddard Riverside Benefit Gala on October 27.

The Council of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP)’s annual Spelling Bee has been rescheduled and will now take place on Monday, November 3. It will be hosted by Diane von Furstenberg and held at her new studio. Publishers may submit the names of authors who would like to participate to jlependorf@clmp.org. CLMP celebrates its fortieth birthday in 2008.

The American Book Producers Association (ABPA) hosts its semi-annual all-day seminar in New York on November 5. This year’s afternoon panels will include “The Internet: Its Impact on Publishing” and “What’s Next?: Future Trends in Publishing.” For more information, e-mail office@ABPAonline.org.

Hopping over to Sweden we encounter a Nordic wonder by the name of Mons Kallentoft. Mr. Kallentoft has proven his versatile capabilities by successfully alternating his literary focus from the animate to the inanimate (and no, we’re not talking corpses). After dabbling in the realm of nonfiction with the release of Food Noir in 2005, a groundbreaking collection of food and travel pieces, the worldly Kallentoft has since returned to home sweet Stockholm and the equally familiar realm of crime fiction. His latest offering, Midwinter’s Sacrifice, is the first in a series that will follow Detective Superintendent Malin Fors, a single working mother struggling to prevent the tragedies that blight her personal past from affecting her professional future. In this inaugural episode, Malin Fors and her colleagues on the police squad undertake the formidable task of determining how a naked obese man came to be hanging from a tree in the dead of winter. Part crime novel, part Deliverance, Kallentoft weaves a chilling, yet compelling tale set in the isolated backwoods of the city of Linköping. Lotta Ollson of Sweden’s Dagens Nyheter pinpoints how Kallentoft’s effective narrative strategy allows a story with roots in one genre to elevate itself to an entirely different level, “The originality does not need to be based on the choice of subject matter. . . . Instead, Kallentoft shifts the perspective ever so slightly, to a different language, a different mood. Only just enough so that one feels lost. It’s a new territory, that Linköping where Malin Fors lives.” And with Midwinter’s Sacrifice recently breaking the top 10 on the Swedish bestseller list, it seems readers have been more than willing to brave this uncharted terrain with Kallentoft as their guide. Talk about getting off to a running start, Kallentoft received an incredibly warm reception for his first novel, Pesetas (Natur & Kultur, 2000), a thriller that received the prestigious Writer’s Associations award for best debut. Since then Kallentoft has not only produced an equally gripping follow-up Marbella Club, but also racked up accolades for chronicling his aforementioned epicurean adventures. Contact Bengt Nordin (bengt.nordin @nordimagency.com). Rights have been sold to Sweden (Natur & Kultur), Germany (Rowohlt), Holland (Ambo Anthos) and Denmark (Gyldendal).

But taking a step outside the scene of the crime for a moment, it is worthwhile to mention some slightly less mysterious, but equally intriguing Scandinavian authors. Enter the wildly successful Swedish memoir/fiction writer Kanja Ingemarsson, whose breakthrough came in 2005 with the lighthearted read, Yesterday’s News (Små citroner gula), a title that sold the most copies in Sweden during 2005 – beating out both Dan Brown and J.K Rowling. With this impressive track record (and presumably lifelong bragging rights), it is no wonder that Ms. Ingemarrsson has garnered some considerable international attention. And while her previous novel is in the midst of being optioned for a film in Sweden, this fall Ms. Ingemarsson will unveil her newest novel, Wheels of Fortune. The story of a quiet suburban town where three women at different stages of their lives come together when a mysterious new woman moves into town, it seems Ingemarsson has mastered a Swedish take on Desperate Housewives, with slightly more heart and slightly less teeth. After the impressive public success of her last novel, the anticipation for Ingemarsson’s fourth novel is palpable. For more information, contact Bengt Nordin. Right have been sold in Sweden (Forum, Månpocket), Germany (DTV), Finland (Otava), The Netherlands (De Kern), Denmark (People’s Press), and Russia (Fluid).

On the more serious end of the spectrum, Norwegian author Herbjorg Wassmo has met with comparable critical success and international interest. The heavily lauded Wassmo has received The Nordic Literary Prize, the Norwegian Critics’ Prize, Norwegian Booksellers’ Prize, as well as being named a First Class Knight of the Order of St. Olav. In her most recent novel And a Glass of Milk, Please. Wassmo takes on the subject of drug trafficking from the perspective of naive 15 year old Dorte, a poor Lithuanian girl who accepts an offer to work in a restaurant in Stockholm with dreams of an exotic adventure only to belatedly discover that she has landed herself in dire circumstances. Juxtaposing the horrors of human brutality with the beauty of her light linguistic touch, Wassmo’s And a Glass of Milk, Please is a novel that is bound to resonate on a universal level and possibly reunite the author with an American audience nearly a decade after her previous novels The House With The Blind Glass Windows and Dina’s Book were published in translation by Seal Press. For more information contact Eva Lie-Nielsen (eva.lie-nielsen[at]gyldendal.no). Rights have been sold in Russia, Netherlands, France, Denmark, Lithuania.

Need any more convincing about the extensive virtues of Scandinavian literature? Look to the UK where a record nine Danish titles were translated into English over the past year. To celebrate this feat, a number of publishing houses are working together to facilitate the Danish Invasion Tour where some of the leading Danish authors will tour the UK. The tour was organized by literary producer Christine Paris, and is supported by the Danish Arts Council, the Embassy of Denmark and Arts Council England. The tour began on May 22, and runs until Oct 13. Touring authors include Morten Ramsland (Doghead), Janne Teller (Odin’s Island), Leif Davidsen (The Serbian Dane) and Christian Jungersen (The Exception). The authors (and a few translators) will be presenting their books, holding public readings at all of the larger U.K. literary festival, and hosting workshops in selected bookshops and libraries throughout England. US publishers take note – To turn a phrase, it seems something is Danish in the state of Shakespeare.

The one likely to create the most industry ire is US/UK Turf Wars: The Defining Rights Issue of our Time and we urge all internationalists to attend. The age-old Whose Territory is it Anyway continues to loom large as we move into an increasingly digital world. The dramatic rise of discounting and consequent margin-plummeting in the UK has led to a stealth campaign to expand the so-called traditional Schedule-A UK exclusive distribution area. Although publishers rather than agents are in a better position to negotiate English language distribution, for agents it is becoming a no-win situation as each side digs in its heels over what now constitutes exclusive distribution territory (especially with the UK claiming the new European Economic Area in addition to hanging on to the Empire – via India etc.). Copyright and intellectual property issues continue to arise, and piracy is becoming a way of life (See page 4-5).

“This panel grew out of the fact that American agents are watching many of our clients’ chances of being published in half the English-speaking world destroyed over an increasing intransigence by both US and UK publishers to negotiate the territories that comprise the “open market’,” moderator Brian deFiore says. Turf Wars will take place 2.30pm-5pm Friday 19th May, Room 204B, Panelists include S&S‘s Carolyn Reidy and Hachette‘s Tim Hely-Hutchinson.

Immediately following, there will be another edifying seminar for agents who wish to master the complexities of book marketing today – little of which includes running that proverbial ad. According to moderator Geri Thoma (Elaine Markson Agency), agents complain of disappearing ad budgets, and the death of the author tour, while publishers complain that agents don’t understand the time, effort, and resources they put into new ways of selling (e.g. front table space at chains and independents, book club guides). The panel will examine what has changed and what agents and authors can expect will change further. Panelists will include Morrow‘s Publisher Lisa Gallagher and David Poindexter of MacAdam-Cage.

Finally, don’t miss Beyond the Code: Building the New Fact-Filled Fiction Genre where veteran author Steve Berry (THE TEMPLAR LEGACY, THE THIRD SECRET) and newcomer Jed Rubenfeld (THE INTERPRETATION OF MURDER) will discuss – along with a bookseller, a reviewer and a marketing director – the sales and marketing implications and opportunities of Dan Brown‘s success for fact-filled fiction. The panel will be moderated by PT‘s own Constance Sayre, and will take place Saturday 1.30pm-2.30pm Room 202A.

Craftsman, plumber, brick-layer, ironware merchant, script writer, filmmaker, and now novelist, Nan Aurousseau has hewed his vast trove of on-the-job tales into a thrilling novel called Overalls. Like so many beleaguered artists, the adroit Frenchman wrote the autobiographical bestseller (not a memoir, mind you) while down and out in his native Montmartre after spending seven years in prison for a botched burglary. An editor, Jean-Marc Roberts, happened upon the manuscript in the slush pile at Stock and declared it a masterpiece after reading only a few pages. With language as “brutal and coarse as the work it describes,” the novel begins with Dan, a plumber and former delinquent photographing his boss, Dolto, as he steals the company’s safe and all its employees’ earnings. The theft sets the tone for what critics have called a cross between a detective story and a social comedy that “turns plumber slang into poetry.” Dan and the rest of the workers occupy a horrible and comic underworld where they’re worked to the bone, injured, and burned by the boiler. Since its publication in November, the title has stayed on the French bestsellers lists, sold over 35,000 copies, and won the Grand Prix RTL-Lire 2006 for the best novel of the year. All rights available. Contact Barbara Porpaczy (bporpaczy@editions-stock.fr).

Like the author of Overalls, Carla Guelfenbein tried on many hats before settling on that of the writer. First a biologist and then a designer in London, the Chilean Guelfenbein worked as artistic director and fashion editor of Elle magazine before becoming a full time novelist and screenwriter. Apparently, she ended up in the right profession as her second novel, The Woman of My Life (Alfaguara Chile), won El Mercurio’s reader’s choice award for “Book of the Year 2005” by such a wide margin that no second or third place prizes were given. Narrated in a man’s voice, the novel takes place in London during the 80s. A British sociology student named Theo falls in love with Clara, a Chilean ballerina who flees to England after her father disappears during the early days of the Pinochet regime. When Clara falls in love with Antonio, a young Chilean exile and Theo’s only friend, Theo must decide whether or not to encourage Antonio to fight for Chile’s freedom when fighting would almost certainly mean losing his rival for Clara’s affection, but also his best and only friend. In an uncertain world ruled by unjust politics, the three navigate their own private issues of jealousy, hope, love, and frustration. Guelfenbein, known for her meticulous research and insightful investigation into ideologies, had another hit in 2002 with her debut novel The Misfortune of the Soul (Alfaguara) which spent over 30 weeks in the top spot on the Chilean bestseller list. Rights to The Woman of My Life have been sold to Germany (Suhrkamp), Italy (Einaudi), Holland (De Bezige Bij), Denmark (Hr. Ferdinand), Norway (Hr. Ferdinand), Iceland (Bjartur), and Israel (Keter). Contact Piergiorgio Nicolazzini (piergiorgio.nicolazzini@pnla.it) at the eponymous literary agency.

Another carefully researched novel in which the personal becomes inextricably entangled with the political is Games (Random House Germany) by Ulrike Draesner, an expansive family drama centered on Katja Berewski, a German photojournalist, and her experience of the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich during which nine Israeli athletes and five members of a PLO group were killed. Thirty years after the events, Katja comes to terms with Max, her estranged first love, the suicide of her mother when she was five, and her Polish grandfather’s affair, all of which coincide in some way. With a grand cast of characters and innumerable intertwining subplots, Games brackets private dramas with historical events and poses questions about the aftermath of the terrorist attack not unlike those Steven Spielberg explores in his recent Oscar-nominated blockbuster, Munich. The “enthralling social novel” has been sold to Spain (RD Editora). Contact Gesche Wendebourg at (gesche.wendebourg@randomhouse.de).

Moving on to Scandinavia, we meet Tom Egeland, who when interviewed by the press is almost always asked first “Do you think Dan Brown plagiarized you?” Graciously, the Norwegian author of six novels replies with “no,” although the comparison is inevitable. Aschehoug first published The Circle’s End in 2001, two full years before Dan Brown finished his opus, and like The Da Vinci Code, Egeland’s novel tells the tale of a 2000 year-old secret, but in this version, the focus is on a gold reliquary containing a manuscript at a medieval Norwegian monastery. Translations of The Circle’s End are making the rounds of foreign bestseller lists across Europe. Interest in the title spiked last summer with the publication of Egeland’s newest thriller, Night of the Wolf. As tension between Norwegian politicians and Chechen asylum-seekers escalates, a famous TV journalist, Kristin Bye, decides to host an unprecedented discussion of the issue on live television. Everyone watches as Kristin introduces the Norwegian authorities and the Chechen rebels, and everyone continues to watch as the Chechens tear open their jackets to reveal weapons and bombs strapped to their chests. They demand that every moment of what becomes a bloody eight-hour hostage situation be broadcast on live TV for all of Norway to see. The “unputdownable” suspense novel has garnered unanimous praise from critics, including one enthusiastic writer who notes the book “positively smells of testosterone and cold sweat. Nothing is sure until the fourth-to-last page of the tremendous ending.” Watch for Tom Egeland at the London Book Fair where he’s going to be Aschehoug’s top name. The following rights to Night of the Wolf have been sold: Danish (Bazar), Dutch (De Geus), Finnish (Bazar), German (Random House), Icelandic (JPV), Italian (Bompiani), Russian (Amphora), Swedish (Bazar). Film options sold to Nordisk Film. Rights to Egeland’s previous bestseller, Circle’s End, have been sold to the same territories as Night of the Wolf plus Czech (Euromedia), French (City Éditions), Greek (Livani), Korean ( Bookhouse Publishing Corp.), Spanish (Ediciones B). Film options sold to Håkon Gundersen. For information, contact Eva Kuløy at Aschehoug Agency (eva.kuloy@aschehougagency.no).

What happens to the books profiled in Publishing Trends? We checked in with editors Anastasia Ashman and Jennier Gokmen for the latest news on Tales from the Expat Harem: Foreign Women in Modern Turkey, the gem of an anthology uncovered by our foreign correspondent while knocking about the bazaars of Istanbul last summer. Since PT broke the story in June, the impressive collection of tales penned by thirty foreign women about their experiences in Turkey has been praised by everyone from politicians to professors. Even Turkey’s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, personally called the editors to thank them for a book with such potential to improve the country’s image abroad. At the Turkish bookstore chain, Remzi, the title has been on the English-language bestseller list for over 20 consecutive weeks, reaching number one in early February. The North American edition (Seal Press) will be launched this month at the New York Consulate General of Republic of Turkey, has already been placed on the syllabus for a course on modern Turkey at the University of Michigan. A U.S. tour of bookstores, Turkish American cultural organizations,and academic conferences is planned for the editors and contributors this spring.

With many of our overseas contacts on summer holiday, we thought we’d bring you a special report from Germany, where the Oprah-esque German media guru Elke Heidenreich is pulling out all the stops in her latest and most far-reaching attempt to get more of her compatriots to read more often, kicking off a nationwide literacy campaign inspired by, but also quite different from, the BBC’s The Big Read.

Conceived by the television station ZDF, the campaign was launched on the July 6th episode of Heidenreich’s immensely popular Lesen (Read), in which she and Michael Naumann, the current publisher of Die Zeit and, of course, a familiar name in the New York publishing world as erstwhile CEO of Henry Holt, presented 38 book recommendations, along with clips of German celebrities recommending their favorite titles. The audience was challenged to spend this summer reading the books so they could vote for their favorite title online or on special postcards only available in bookstores. More than 1.57 million viewers tuned in to the inaugural show (that’s 8.4% of the market share) so it is no surprise that ZDF received a whopping 7,000 email votes and 3,000 postcards the day after the broadcast. Ten days before the deadline, more than 90,000 people had voted for a favorite book and the website had registered more than 3 million hits. Many bookstores — which are plastered with large posters encouraging customers to vote — have already run out of voting postcards, and more than one German bookseller noted that suddenly there is a demand for titles that had only recently been available on special order.

Though the campaign is entitled Our Best: The Big Read, many books on the list are translations and quite a few are translations from English, running the gamut from Mark Twain to Siri Hustvedt. As Riky Stock of the German Book Office rightly points out, “It is a fact that in Germany most of the books on the bestseller lists are translations,” yet there is certainly no shortage of German greats on the list, including Hermann Hesse, Max Frisch, and Bertolt Brecht.

While it is too early to speculate about the show’s long-term effect on book sales, there is little doubt that the promotion is already a huge success in its attempt to electrify the reading public, as the list of favorite books is growing by the hour. Diana Gabaldon, Dan Brown, Frank Schätzing, and Carlos Ruiz Zafón are among the leaders of the pack, and three of John Irving’s books inhabit the top ranks. Thomas Mann’s tome The Magic Mountain has received its fair share of votes and juvenile books are also well-represented by Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart, the Harry Potter series, and classics by Astrid Lindgren and Erich Kaestner. German schools are jumping on board, thanks to the organizers of Stiftung Lesen (a nationwide initiative similar to One City, One Book) who sent out 11,000 letters to teachers and librarians to inform them of the campaign. The project has also won tremendous support from the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels (the German Booksellers’ and Publishers’ Association).

Along with the books recommended on the show, ZDF drew up its own list of 200 titles for readers to choose from, and readers do have the option of writing in titles (fiction or nonfiction) when they vote. The initiative will culminate on October 1st with the TV special Best Read, featuring a presentation of the 50 most popular titles, hosted by one of Germany’s most popular anchormen Johannes Kerner, who counts Bill Clinton among his recent interviewees. As an added incentive, a lucky voter will be chosen at random to attend the show (others will be entered into a drawing for gift certificates to the department store Kaufhof.) Newpapers are rife with reminders about the vote and, prior to the October show, ZDF will broadcast several trailers with more celebrities presenting their favorite books.

Heidenreich’s reputation does precede her, and her recent recommendation of Hector’s Journey by François Lelord catapulted the book from 27th on Der Spiegel’s list to fifth place. Italian author Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa fared even better as his novel The Leopard shot from 23rd place to number one after it was featured on her show.

It is this successful track record that leads Jutta Willand, Director of Foreign and Domestic Rights at Eichborn to believe that the campaign will have “extremely positive effects for books in general.” She noted that the final vote tally will determine which publishers will most immediately benefit, and added that it is “likely that the print runs of the first ten to twenty rankings will rise significantly.” Several original German titles on the big list have already seen a significant increase in sales, including Robert Musil’s classic The Man Without Qualities and C.W. Ceram’s landmark survey of ancient culture, Gods, Graves, and Scholars: The Story of Archaeology, which has sold more than 1.8 million copies since its initial publication in 1949 and has been translated into 25 languages (both have been published in the US by Knopf, and Vintage has published a paperback edition of Ceram’s book). Marianne Sparr, who handles foreign rights for Rowohlt, the German publisher of both books, said that July sales of the titles have already reached numbers “corresponding with figures we usually have for half a year.”

At least two German audiobooks made the list and German author Rolf Vollmann also made the cut with his “novel on novels” Wonderful Counterfeiters. At 1080 pages, the book includes a “subjective and brilliant” ode to more than a thousand European and American novels written by more than 300 novelists, both famous and little known, between the years 1800 and 1930, the period which he values as the height of this genre. All rights to Vollmann’s book are still available from Jutta Willand.

The mission of choosing the best book of all time — and not just the most popular book of the moment — is no small task, and it is unlikely that this campaign will be repeated in the exact same format next year, but given the overwhelming response to Heidenreich and the program in general, it is hard to imagine that something similar won’t spring up in its place.

PT thanks Riky Stock, with Sybille Fuhrmann from Börsenblatt, Christoph Schaefer from Stiftung Lesen and Werner von Bergen from ZDF, for contributing to this article. See www.zdf.de, for the complete list.Get G