Sad news
Award-winning children’s-book author and poet Eloise Greenfield, known for her positive depictions of Black family life, her biographies spotlighting notable Black figures in U.S. history, and her efforts to fight racism, died on August 5. She was 92.
Jack Covert, founder of Porchlight Book Company, died August 13. He was 77. Porchlight is mostly known as a retailer for business books. Under his guidance, Porchlight grew into a highly influential B2B company for business books. He is the author of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time, and his monthly review series, Jack Covert Selects, was published in newspapers and business journals until his retirement in 2014.
PRH and Amanda Gorman Launch Creative Writing Award for Poetry
By Gilcy Aquino | Aug 12, 2021for PW
Success!
Alexis Clark, Enemies in Love, sold a history of the country’s four Black sororities, Sisters, The Untold Story of America’s Black Sororities and Their Fight for Racial and Gender Equality, to Random House. The book, RH said, details “the groundbreaking women who founded [the sororities] a little over a century ago and those who followed in their footsteps”—from Zora Neale Hurston to Vice President Kamala Harris.
William Morrow, in a ten-house auction, won North American rights to Emiko Jean’s adult debut, Mika in Real Life, for seven figures. Mika in Real Life follows a Japanese American woman who “reconnects with the daughter she placed for adoption 17 years ago and suddenly gets a second chance at motherhood, love, and the career she always wanted.” It explores “larger issues of overcoming personal trauma and the model minority myth.” Foreign rights deals for the book have closed in the United Kingdom, Denmark, Germany, Italy, and elsewhere.
How to Write a Science Fiction Novel Series: 6 Tips
Sourcebooks Net Revenue Jumped 48% in First Half of 2021
Partnership with Fifty Shades of Grey author E.L. James gave the fiction program a lift, which led to the creation of Bloom Books, an imprint looking to work with entrepreneurial authors.
Publishing Industry Supply-Chain Challenges and Opportunities Zoom Meeting/Free Tuesday, October 5, 2021, Noon EDT
How can publishers and the companies that work with them navigate persistent supply-chain challenges, maximize opportunities during the crucial fourth quarter of 2021, and prepare their businesses for optimal success in the year ahead? You can send questions ahead for the panelists.
Report: Disney Is Only Paying Comics Creators $5,000 for Work It’s Adapted for Billions
Publishers Blast Internet Archive’s Extraordinary Demand for Sales Data
By Andrew Albanese | Aug 13, 2021 Internet Archives is being sued by four publishers for copyright infringement based on IA’s program of scanning and lending books without compensation for authors. IA’s lawyers have demanded sales records for each book they distributed going back to 2011, to prove there was no drop in sales due to the books being offered free.
Attorneys for the publishers say providing such information would involve “more than 500,000 titles” and an “enormous reservoir of highly proprietary data,” would be costly, time-consuming, “burdensome in the extreme” and legally “irrelevant” and is a preposterous request as there is no precedent. Gathering data would take months and prove nothing.
New independent bookstore opening in a familiar Ann Arbor location
Bookish, an independent book boutique opens in the KOP Mall
Greenlight Bookstores in Brooklyn Unionize
By Ed Nawotka | Aug 17, 2021
Penguin Publishing Group Realigns Marketing, Publicity
Australia-based Hardie Grant Publishing has appointed Jenny Wapner publisher of its North American operations to expand Hardie Grant’s reach into the United States and Canada.
They currently publish 200 book and gift items annually in the U.S. with the content originating in Australia and the United Kingdom offices. With Wapner’s appointment, they expect to publish an additional ten to twelve titles per season by the end of next year.
King Features Rethinks Classic Comics for YA, Middle Grade Readers
By Karen Raugust | Aug 19, 2021 Classics like The Phantom, Flash Gordon, Prince Valiant, Mandrake the Magician, and Popeye will get upgrades plus there will be new, younger characters.
Mindless activities can often help the mind work out plot problems or create new ideas. Check out these five coloring books designed for writers.
For days when you don’t/can’t write, lose the guilt! Here are tips:
The music of the 90s come to life in Hell of a Hat by Kenneth Partridge as he talks about ska and swing, with interviews from the likes of The Mighty, Mighty Bosstones, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Less Than Jake, Royal Crown Revu, and many more!
Hachette Book Group Will Acquire Workman Publishing for $240 Million
By Jim Milliot | Aug 16, 2021 The big publishers continue to get bigger. The deal should be finalized by the end of September, making Workman Hachette’s eighth publishing group, made up of imprints Workman, Algonquin, Algonquin Young Readers, Artisan, Storey Publishing, and Timber Press.
Serialized Books Are a Burgeoning Business at Substack
By John Maher | Aug 19, 2021
