Dec 24
If sales of the Amazon Kindle are any indicator of ebook success then there is only one conclusion. People will buy ebooks. In fact, the Amazon Kindle is actually sold out at the moment. What does this mean? Well it is probably good news for the Sony Reader. Since people can’t get the Amazon Kindle they may switch to the Sony Reader. And ebook sales for the iPhone are growing.
Dec 24
A French court has ruled that modern day sequels to Victor Hugo’s classic “Les Miserables” are allowed. The French court threw out a suit from the 19th century master’s descendants. This had been a years long legal battle. The Paris appeals court ruled in favor of Plon. It is the publisher of two novels based on “Les Miserables” by a modern-day author named Francois Ceresa. The court has dismissed the suit from the descendants of Victor Hugo and ordered them to pay 10,000 euros ($13,960) in damages and interest.
Dec 23
The Man Group sponsors the Booker prize. And they have taken a $360 million hit from Bernard Madoff. The award has been sponsored since 2002 by the Man Group. The full story is on the NY Times site. Jane Acton, a spokeswoman for the Man Booker Prize, told Bloomberg, “There’s absolutely no reason to suggest that there would be any difference to the sponsorship deal we have at the moment.” So for now, nothing has changed with the Booker prize.
Dec 23
It has been a busy month for The Friedrich Agency. How busy am I talking about? The Friedrich Agency closed six deals between December 15 and 19!
Here is what they got -
Two nonfiction titles about America, The Rhinestone Sisterhood, by David Valdes Greenwood, which Paul Cirone sold at auction to Rachel Klayman at Crown, and a compendium of U.S. history anecdotes by Michael Morris; Cirone also sold the Morris, to Charles Conrad at Broadway.
The debut mystery Shooter, by Nora McFarland, went in a three book deal to Trish Lande Grader at Touchstone Fireside; another debut, Naked Love, by Laurie Frankel, went to Lindsay Sagnette at St. Martin’s Press; and, at auction, Noelle Hancock’s My Year With Eleanor, which was picked up by Ginny Smith at Ecco Press.
And finally, the next two books in Spencer Quinn’s mystery series, which is slated to debut in February 2009.
Dec 23
The iPhone is really an interesting little gadget. And it looks like you can now read ebooks on it! All that to a company called ScrollMotion. It is a two year old iPhone application development company. They have launched Iceberg, which is an e-book reader for the iPhone. You can use it with titles from six publishers: Random House, Hachette, Penguin, Counterpoint, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and Simon & Schuster.
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